


Daughter of the Empire

by Dragonlingdar



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: AU, Child!Leia, Dark Leia Organa, Darth Vader as a dad is too much fun, Family, Family Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Force Training, Gen, It Gets Worse, Original Trilogy AU, Sith Leia Organa, it gets more serious too, leia skywalker - Freeform, teenager!Leia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-29 17:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11445309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonlingdar/pseuds/Dragonlingdar
Summary: What if Darth Vader raised Leia as his daughter, as a daughter of the Empire?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I am bringing over from ff.net. It is there by the same name and written by Ryuuko1. I am Ryuuko1. I give myself permission to post this.
> 
> Also: I own nothing. Never have and never will.

“Lord Vader?”

Darth Vader turned to look at the trembling peon who stood a respectful distance away, a slight sheen of sweat sticking the hair beneath the man’s hat to his forehead. “What?” he asked flatly. He disliked being disturbed, especially when brooding—and Alderaan was quite a beautiful planet to brood at.

“A-a-agents of yours have located your target.”

“Oh?” Vader asked, since a cock of the eyebrow could not longer ask the question for him—which was incredibly inconvenient. He’d have to find a way to express that in body language, but he was still getting used to the shell he now lived in, so it might take some time.

“Your d-daughter. We’ve found her—or believe that we’ve found her,” the peon half-stuttered.

“ _Believe_ that you’ve found her?”

The peon swallowed hard and nodded. “She is with the Organas, sir. Like you suspected she would be.”

Vader’s posture went rigid, a trill of both joy and anxiety working its way through his body. “We shall see,” he said. “I am going to retrieve her.”

Darth Vader pushed the peon aside and stalked quickly away, his breathing heavier than usual with excitement.

_A daughter! A_ daughter. _I have a daughter! A child!_ My _child. Oh, Padme, I will take care of her with the utmost love and devotion in your memory. She will not want for anything—especially as the daughter of the Emperor’s right hand._

His steps slowed with caution as the presence of the Emperor dawned on him:

_Do I want him to know about my daughter?_

He continued to stalk through the corridors of the spaceship, mulling over the situation he found himself in.

_I want my daughter with me—no, I_ need _my daughter with me. She is the only worthwhile thing in my life now that..._ _She will be_ mine. _The Emperor will, unfortunately, have to know, but, knowing him, he won’t bother involving himself in the raising of a young girl._

Vader stopped in front of his personal shuttle and looked to the Stormtroopers who guarded it and nodded slightly. “Is it prepared for departure?”

“Always, Lord Vader,” came the crisp reply.

“Good,” Vader said shortly. “I’m leaving now.”

As Vader walked into the ship, a Stormtrooper began to follow, only to be thrown back by a Force-push from Vader. “I am going alone. Don’t bother to tell the Emperor my whereabouts—he won’t care anyway.”

The shuttle door closed behind him as he made his way to the controls—mostly machine he may be, but that didn’t dull his skill at flying; it was one of the few pleasures left in his life; although, now with the presence of his daughter, he had something else to live for and love with all his might.

Vader guided the shuttle out of the Destroyer and into space, a feeling of lightness descending on him. While he enjoyed the power he wielded, while he loved seeing whole worlds bow before his might and majesty, there was a freedom in flying that could never be replaced. He turned his small, personal shuttle towards the bright blue ball that was Alderaan and extended his senses as he approached.

There it was—a small, faint signature, but one nonetheless. He would simply have to follow the pull of the Force to find his daughter, for there was no way that she wouldn’t have talent; it was simply up to him to train her, and train her he would.

He passed unnoticed into the atmosphere and eventually found a place to land not far from his destination. He, admittedly, had a limited amount of time to get his daughter, but he wouldn’t feel any particular remorse in bullying his way out of Alderaan—he took orders only from himself and, when the mood struck him, his master. He was going to bring his daughter home where she belonged—with him—regardless of what was done to stop him.

He easily found his way to the Organa’s residence, and while he was unable to move in complete silence anymore, people were easily bent to his influence through the Force and droids were quickly silenced through a different but equally effective use of the power he had at his command.

He continued to follow the tug on the Force that was achingly, wonderfully kin to his own, navigating the sweeping, beautiful halls with ease. He paused in front of the door where the pull was the strongest and listened with both physical and metaphysical senses. When he determined that there was only one life-form and one droid he opened the door with the Force, and silenced the droid with a quiet crunch of collapsing metal, which caused the small figure in the bed to turn over restlessly and sit up enough to look at him as he entered, the door hissing shut behind him.

She was beautiful, more beautiful than anything else he had ever seen in the universe.

“Who?” she asked in a small, young voice that tremored from sleep and surprise.

Vader walked over and knelt next to her bed so he was on eye level with her, and was both proud and surprised that she didn’t flinch away—instead, she seemed curious, and she reached out to touch the cold material of the mask that hid his deformed and maligned appearance, her fingers tracing the sweeping, jagged curves.

“How old are you?” he asked once she had finished her exploration of his mask.

She held up three fingers. “Two!” she replied proudly, and Vader smiled lovingly inside his helmet.

“You’re quite the big girl, aren’t you?”

She grinned, and any initial surprise and fear she might have felt was obviously evaporating in the face of something as interesting as he was.

“My name is Anakin Skywalker—although most call me Darth Vader anymore.

“Das Badah?” she repeated, then pointed at herself and proclaimed: “Leia!”

The remnants of Vader’s eyebrows snapped up inside his helmet. They hadn’t really discussed what they would name the children once they were born—there simply hadn’t been time for such a discussion. So now, to hear the name that his wife had chosen for their child…

“That’s a very pretty name,” he said warmly. “Now, Leia, you’re going to come with me.”

She seemed briefly puzzled, but didn’t fight when he picked her up and held her against his chest. “Where’re we goin?”

Vader looked down at her as she gazed up at him, her small hands tangling in the folds of his cloak. “Home.”

She tilted her head and frowned delicately, the expression endearing and adorable enough to make Vader lightly run his hand over Leia’s hair. “These people were just…borrowing you. You’re _my_ daughter, so you’re coming home with me.”

She blinked up at him and snuggled against him, digging her face into his chest. “Okay.”

Vader felt his heart nearly burst at how she fell quickly, deeply asleep to the rhythm of his respirator, her implicit trust sending warm shivers through his soul.

He looked around the room, pulled the cover off her bed—a teddy bear coming with it—and wrapped it around his daughter, squeezing the stuffed animal between their bodies.

The door behind him opened and he silenced the surprised yell by throwing the person across the hall and into the far wall before he stepped out and began to walk back the way he had come, his cloak billowing out behind him.

Somehow the household had been alerted to his presence, but they presented little threat, as a purely pacifist planet carried no true weapons that were effective against him—and anyway, they wouldn’t risk hitting the princess he carried lovingly in his padded arms.

“Stop!”

Vader turned enough to look over his shoulder and rolled his eyes inside his helmet before tossing his would-be attacker back into the others that followed him and another gesture before him swiped the hall clear.

Leia stirred at the commotion, but Vader soothed her to sleep using the Force, continuing his leisurely pace down the corridors, stepping over and around unconscious bodies (with a few dead ones mingled in—it didn’t take much to snap a person’s neck).

“ _You_!”

Vader looked towards the familiar voice and smiled coldly inside his helmet. “Senator Organa,” he replied smoothly without stopping in his transit.

“Give her back! She is _our_ daughter.”

Vader whirled and snarled, picking up Organa using the Force, holding him a foot off the floor as an invisible hand clenched around his throat, the man struggling in midair, trying to pry away fingers that didn’t exist.

“She is _mine_ , Senator. _My wife_ carried her. She is mine, blood and bone, and I’m not going to give her back to someone who has no claim on her whatsoever,” he snarled and flung the Alderaan native against a wall, knocking him unconscious—and hopefully killing him for having the audacity for trying to stand between him and what was his.

He continued the rest of the way to his shuttle, Leia wrapped up tightly against him, her soft, small warmth against him a comfort and a reminder of how much he had gained from a moment of clarity during his dreams.

_I will love you forever, Leia. You will be my daughter, a daughter of the Empire, of the Sith, and you will be feared and loved throughout the entire galaxy._

He gestured and boarded his shuttle, settled Leia on his lap as he heard people running up to him and took off as the shuttle door closed, headed back into the cold vastness of space, mind already darting ahead to determine how he would make a young girl like Leia comfortable in his quarters on a Destroyer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Again, nothing belongs to me. Alas.

“Daddy!”

Leia tore through the corridors of the Star Destroyer, her toy lightsabre shoved through her belt, the plastic clacking against the floor with every other step—clack-drag, clack-drag, a familiar sound to anyone who served on Darth Vader’s ship.

Officers, droids, and Troopers all stepped out of her way as she ran, the young girl heedless of her surroundings. While this was an annoyance to some, no-one would bring it up with the Dark Lord of the Sith that a 5 year old on an Imperial Cruiser was probably not the best place for her to be—for a number of reasons, the least being the toys that people discovered in random locations throughout the ship’s halls (there had once been a toy TIE fighter shoved in the communal freezer, which had been both fascinating an annoying—how did a young child reach the _freezer_ , let alone sneak into the soldiers’ quarters?).

Leia sped up, just _knowing_ where her father was, turned a corner, and then pounced on her father’s long black cloak and scrambled up it to perch herself on his shoulders.

“Leia,” he said with exasperated affection as she kissed the top of his helmet, her small arms wrapping around his neck in a hug.

“Daddy! Daddy, daddy, daddy guess what!”

“What is it?” he replied appropriately as he picked her off his shoulders using the Force.

Leia shrieked in glee as she was suspended mid-air—she loved it when her daddy used the Force on her, it was just _super cool_ and made her feel warm, safe, and tingly. She wanted to learn how to do it really, really badly, but daddy always said he’d teach her when she was older—so she had tried to learn how to do it on her own, with very little success.

Leia beamed up at him and said, “I have a loose tooth!”

“Do you now?” the Dark Lord asked as he scooped her up in his arms, which allowed her to snuggle against his respirator as he walked back to their quarters.

She hugged his neck tightly and said, “Everything went well.”

“Yes,” her father replied, smug satisfaction in his voice that made her grin.

“No-one is as strong as daddy,” she proclaimed and felt him chuckle softly.

“What have you been up to?” Vader asked as the door opened for them.

“Dreaming!” Leia replied. “Lots and lots of dreams. And fighting Jedi. And flying all around and around until I win! The soldiers don’t like it when I win.”

“I bet they don’t,” her father said, obviously darkly amused. Leia had escaped into the flight simulators one day, and it had taken the threat of taking her lightsabre away to get her to stop flying circles around the cadets.

“Look! I drew you things. Drew my dreams for you.”

Her father had told her that dreams were very important, that they told you things about the future, and he really liked knowing about the future, and Leia would do anything that her dad liked—she loved him very, very much.

He regarded her masterpieces solemnly before tacking them up on the wall, which was covered with pictures—her father never threw out a single one, which made her heart burst with pride. She loved her daddy and she knew that he loved her, and that made everything okay in the world.

“Leia.”

Leia pursed her lips at the sound of her father’s voice—it was serious, and when he was serious she was usually in trouble.

“Yes, daddy?”

“I think it’s time I started to teach you the ways of the Force.”

Her entire body tingled and she screeched with pure happiness. “Then I can be like daddy? I can be a Sith?”

Her father knelt and ran a hand gently over her hair (which she was letting grow long—she liked it better that way, although it did get in the way of her mock battles sometimes) and said, “Yes, so you can one day be a Sith.”

“And be strong and brave and stuff?”

“So you can be strong and brave and stuff.”

Leia grinned so wide her face hurt before she threw her hands around her father’s neck. “I love you, Daddy!”

Her father gently held her to him and murmured, “I love you too, Leia.” He gently pushed her to arm’s length and said, “We will begin now.”

Leia’s eyes widened. “Now? _Now?!_ ”

Vader nodded.

“ _Now!_ ” Leia yelled as she ran around the room in triumphant, pulling out her lightsabre and yelling challenges to the evil Jedi.

Leia stopped when she heard her father laugh and gave him an uncertain smile.

“Come here,” he said and she went to him. He picked her up and put her on the kitchen counter and placed a fruit a yard or so away.

“I want you to concentrate _really hard_ on the fruit. I want you to imagine that you’re holding it, and then _squish_ it.”

Leia was intrigued. “But it isn’t a squishy fruit.”

“Pretend it is and make it go all over the counter.”

That her dad was giving her _permission_ to make a mess was awe-inspiring, and made her desperately want to do it well.

However, when the fruit remained a fruit after 4 minutes, she began to get frustrated and distracted. It was _boring._

“Daddy, this is too hard,” she whined, but her statement was met with only a shake of her father’s head.

“Do you want to make things move? Throw spitballs at the officers when they’re not looking?”

Leia’s eyes lit up, although her smile was slightly guilty. “Yes!”

“Then squish the fruit and I’ll teach you how to do that. _Use_ your frustation. _Use_ your boredom. _Feel_ your emotions, Leia, for they are your strength and will fuel your power. Be _angry_ with the fruit, and then squish it.”

Leia looked back to the fruit and glowered at it, thrusting all her annoyance and _need_ to please her father into what she wanted to do, seeing in her mind the fruit splattered all over the kitchen.

She instinctively reached out and clenched her hand—and suddenly the fruit went everywhere.

Leia looked at her hand in awe, her eyes wide and jaw slack.

“I did it daddy! I did it! Can I squish more fruit?” she asked hurriedly, not wanting to loose what it felt like to reach out with something more-than-herself and cause something she wanted to happen occur without her doing anything but _feel_.

“You can squish two more fruit,” he said, something that might have been a laugh coloring his voice.

Leia grinned and after a half-hour of concentrated efforts and slight-misfires, two more fruits were splattered across the kitchen table while Leia dutifully swept together pieces of ceramic onto a pile on the floor and her father righted overturned furniture.

“Perhaps we should get someplace special for us to practice,” her father observed as he unbent the leg of a chair back into a vauge semblance of its former order—enough so that the chair was workable, but would always have one leg shorter than the others.

Even the prospect of learning how to talk and understand other languages didn’t hold the same petulance she usually treated it to. Afterall, if she could squish fruit, why not droids who droned on too long?

\--

Using the Force was as easy as breathing for Leia, and she looked forward to her lessons with her father much more than her lessons with droids or other sentients about more mundane things like math or languages or tactics.

She was juggling pieces of silverware when her father walked in on her practice. Her attention immediately shifted and with a clatter of falling metal, all the forks and spoons (she had learned not to use knives after a rather impressive lecture) hitting the counter.

“Daddy?” she asked tentatively. He seemed more serious than usual.

“We’re moving to Coruscant.”

She frowned slightly, puzzled. “Why? It’s fun here!”

The spaceship was her home, she had found her place among all the soldiers, becoming a kind of warped mascot, and she liked it that way.

“You should meet kids your own age and attend a better school than the droids can provide.”

Leia pouted. “But I _like_ it here!”

“You’ll like it on Coruscant, too. The whole planet is one big city.”

Leia frowned. “City?”

Vader paused then amended, “It’s like a whole lot of Cruisers all mashed together, but there are more than just soldiers there.”

Leia was intrigued. “More than just soldiers?”

“Yes,” her father replied.

“Is daddy coming, too?”

“Yes, I am,” Vader replied, and Leia could tell he was smiling. “I’d never leave you.”

Leia grinned and attached herself to his leg. “And I’ll never leave you.”

“We’re going to be docking at Coruscant once we come out of hyperspace. Pack all your things—I have a place where we’re going to live.”

“Okay,” Leia replied brightly and collected and sorted the silverware that was lying on the floor back into neat piles before she skipped off to her room to put all her toys and clothes into a bag.

Perhaps it would be interesting, living in a place-of-many-Cruisers and with not-soldiers. She might even meet people like herself!

Well, almost anyway. Leia knew that she was special in that she could use the Force. Many an officer had been consternated by a missing hat or disappearing pens and belts, and they knew who to blame for the mischief—no one else could pull it off, which to Leia meant that they were just stupid.

“I hope that there aren’t a lot of stupid officers,” she told her plushie stormtrooper. “I’m gonna have to hide a lot of belts otherwise.”

She still wasn’t fully packed when she felt them come out of hyperspace, so began shoving as much as she could into the bags that she had. Her father found her sitting on a suitcase in an attempt to force it closed, and all it took from him was an application of the Force to let her close it the rest of the way.

“Thank you, daddy,” she said dutifully, to which her father replied: “You’re welcome. Come, I want you to see Coruscant.”

She shadowed her father’s footsteps, jumping to keep stride. Her father took very long steps, but she would match them one day. One day, she’d be big and strong and a Sith like her dad, and stupid Officers wouldn’t call her nasty names where they thought she couldn’t hear them.

She gasped in frightened awe when her father picked her up enough to see through the viewport. They were descending into the atmosphere of a huge, sparkling ball, full of life and the mimicry of it, and Leia could feel an odd sensation wrap around her heart.

“Daddy, I’ve seen this place before,” she told him in a whisper.

“Have you now?” her father asked, his tone indecipherable.

“In my dreams. I’ve seen it in my dreams,” she replied absently as the planet loomed ever closer.

“Good dreams or bad dreams?”

“Both. Daddy, we’re gonna spend a lot of time here and I’m gonna meet someone important, right?”

“Indeed,” Vader replied, but Leia only partially heard him, because amid the sense of _something important_ was another sense of something….well, not-good. She wanted to find it and squish it like an annoying droid, but she knew that it was too powerful for her to squish it—at least for now.

She looked over to her father, who was stiff with impending formality, which made her look back at the planet. Whoever it was that made her daddy unhappy would be made unhappy as soon as she was strong enough to make them unhappy. Because no-one would make her daddy unhappy if she could help it—ever.

“Your shuttle is ready, Lord Vader.”

“Come, Leia,” Vader said and began to walk to the hangar bay. “We’re going to go to our new home.”

All dark thoughts were banished from Leia’s mind at the impending adventure. “We are? We are we are we are?”

“Yes,” Vader replied, a chuckle in his voice.

Leia yelled with delight and ran down the hall before him—she knew which shuttle was his, although she didn’t know _how_ she knew. It was just one of those things that she knew-without-knowing, and her father seemed proud that she could do that.

She scampered up the ramp and into the cockpit, where she gaped at all the shiny buttons and switches. It wasn’t the same as the fighters she flew when she could sneak away and steal a helmet, so she decided that she would let her dad fly the shuttle—she’d watch, though, so that next time _she_ could fly it.

She heard her dad coming and looked over her shoulder before hopping into the co-pilot chair and strapping herself in. Vader settled into the pilot’s seat and began to flick switches and hit buttons, and Leia watched with rapt attention at how he deftly closed the ramp and guided the ship out of the bay and into space.

Leia had never actually set foot on a planet, so when they maneuvered into the atmosphere, her heart began to pound. What would it be like, something that wasn’t almost always moving in hyperspace? What would the people be like, who hadn’t grown up on a spaceship? What would not-military people be like?

It was all terrifying, but equally exhilarating.

They alighted gently on the landing pad of some kind of structure, and Leia looked it over curiously, afraid to take a step onto the landing pad. She had never breathed the air of a _planet_ before. Would it hurt her? Would the gravity squish her, or would she float away?

Her father must have sensed her anxiety, since he picked her up and held her gently against him, which let her bury her head in his chest and clench at her cloak.

“It’s no different than a Cruiser,” Vader assured her and walked out of the shuttle onto the pad.

The first thing that assaulted her was the _noise_. There was a hum of vehicles she had never seen before cruising through the atmosphere, the quiet drone of living beings talking too many languages for her to decipher, and the beeps and whirls and quirks of machinery that helped run the planet.

The second thing was the _smells_. The whole place smelled absolutely vile after the obsessive cleanliness of the spaceship, and she dug her face more into her father’s chest to try and cover the stench with the scent of her father. It was a relief when they moved into the structure, an airtight door hissing shut behind them. The area felt newly-cleaned, and she reluctantly pulled away from her father when he placed her on the ground. The floor was soft and squishy beneath her feet, and she wanted to feel what it was like beneath her toes, so quickly shucked off her shoes.

It was as soft as she had thought it would be.

The furniture was all broad, gentle, sweeping curves and warm earth-tones, and she looked around with open awe. She touched _everything_ , even the things that her father told her not to touch, because it was simply all new and _weird_.

“This is our new home, Leia,” her father said, and Leia nodded absently. “Do you want me to show you your room?”

Leia quickly whirled around, anxiety racing through her. “I can’t stay with daddy anymore?” she asked, her voice high-pitched in terror.

“You’re a big girl now, Leia,” her father said firmly. “A seven-year old should have her own room.”

Leia squirmed and swallowed hard, her hands feeling suddenly clammy. “Okay, daddy. But I’ll always see you, right? You won’t leave me?”

The prospect of being alone in a new place was terrifying.

“I won’t leave you,” Vader replied gently. “I’ll be with you.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

The affirmation relieved Leia of all her doubts, so she followed her father where he gestured.

The room was big—bigger than anything she had ever seen on the ship, except the bridge (the bridge was very big, big even for her father).

Her eyes widened and she moved to explore everything—if it was to be hers, she needed to know it _all_.

“Droids will bring your clothes and toys here,” Vader said as Leia tore apart the room to uncover all the nooks and crannies that would be hers.

Leia paused as she ran a hand over the bed, a small frown forming on her face. “Daddy has been here before. Not just now, but a while ago.” She looked up at him, startled. “When were you gone? Why didn’t you tell me, daddy?”

Leia was baffled at how his shoulders slumped slightly, almost as if he had spent too much time on the bridge with stupid people. “I lived here with your mother.”

Leia cocked her head to the side. “With mom?” Leia rarely heard about her mom—her dad had loved her a lot, and would tell her stories occasionally, but she wasn’t often a topic of conversation. Leia figured it was a “I’ll tell you when you’re older” thing so she put it out of mind.

Still, it was intriguing that she would live in the same place her mom used to.

“I love you, daddy,” she said as she smiled at him—she knew-without-knowing that he needed to hear it.

“I love you, too, Leia,” he replied, his voice soft and sad.

Leia pouted and then jumped on her father, clinging fast to his leg. “And you’re staying here with me and teaching me how to be a good Sith!”

She could feel his love when he put a hand on her head. “Of course. But you have to learn other things, with other children.”

Leia looked up, pouting. “But I like daddy best.”

“You need to meet children your age.”

“But they’ll be _boring_.”

“You never know.”

Leia snuggled closer to his armor-padded leg and huffed. “They’ll be stupid and boring and pains-in-the-ass.”

“Young lady!”

Leia giggled and nuzzled her dad’s leg.

She had picked up a few bad words from the officers when they were frustrated with her hiding things, and knew that her father would forbid her using them—which was okay with her, since they were things mostly boys said and boys were more dumb than usual.

So when he did, she simply agreed. The droids arrived then, and Leia ran to get her belongings, anticipation and unease filling her concurrently.

“The Force will be with me,” she told her Stormtrooper stuffed toy. “And daddy’ll be with me, so I’ll be okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars does not belong to me. Alas.

“Leia Padme Amidala Skywalker.”

Leia winced. She knew she was in trouble when daddy used her _full_ name.

“Yes, daddy?” she asked, as she turned away from playing with her action figures, using the Force to shove them into their bin. Her daddy didn’t _feel_ angry, so she wasn’t in trouble with him, she was in the same kind of trouble as the time she punched a classmate in the face for calling one of her friends a bad name.

“Your teachers at school want to have me and you in to see them together for a ‘parent-teacher conference,’” Vader told her.

Leia tried to think back to what could have _possibly_ gotten her in trouble with the stuffy teachers, but she couldn’t really come up with anything. She hadn’t snuck away from the school in over a year, all the other kids had learned not to argue with her, she didn’t argue with the teachers like she used to, and she no longer practiced using the Force on particularly annoying droids at school. She really _shouldn’t_ be in trouble over anything.

“Why?” she asked.

“I imagine that is what we’re going to find out,” Vader said and plucked her off the floor using the Force.

Leia giggled and squirmed, the warmth of the Force flowing around her before he put her back down on her feet.

“After we deal with whatever nonsense these teachers want, we’re going to get you your first set of trainee robes,” Vader told her.

Leia screeched in joy. “So I can be a _real_ Sith now?”

“You have _always_ been a ‘real’ Sith,” Vader told her and gently ran his gloved hand over her hair.

“Can I wear them to school?”

“No.”  
“But _daddy_ …”

“Leia, you being a Sith is a special secret just between us,” Vader told her as she took his hand in hers. “Do you want to tell other people our secret?”

“No! Never!”

“Good,” Vader told her and squeezed her hand gently as he led them out to the ship that was permanently docked outside their home. He had told her that when she was 10 he would teach her how to fly, and she was less than a year away. She was counting down the days.

Leia hopped into the passenger seat as Vader settled himself in the driver’s.

“I’m so happy you’re my daddy,” Leia told Vader as they pulled away from their home.

She felt the upswell in the Force that indicated her dad’s love and basked in it.

“And I’m so lucky to have you as my daughter,” he told her and patted her head again before focusing on avoiding traffic.

“Daddy has been busy lately,” Leia said even as she was pressed up against the glass, squinting to find the ground far below.

“A few of the Imperial senators have been…” Vader paused. “Annoying.”

“Can I squish them for you?” Leia offered, looking away from the blur of lights and life. “I’m good at squishing annoying things.”

Vader laughed, the sound warm. “I know you can. But they’re not something you can squish.”

“Why not?” Leia asked, petulant.

“Because they’re important people, and squishing them would make things even harder for me.”

“Oh. Okay then. No squishing.”

“But if I ever do find a problem that can be fixed by squishing, I will make sure you do the squishing.”

Leia cheered and hugged her dad’s upper arm.

“Why don’t you tell me about your friends?

Leia happily chattered about her friends, about their plans and escapades, about birthday parties and cultural holidays, about meeting parents and siblings. She told him about her classes and her teachers. She knew that hearing about her life made her daddy happy, but in a sort-of sad way. It was more happy than sad, though, so she kept up her narrative until Vader interrupted her.

“Do you ever want one of your friends to come over to our place?” Vader asked, although there was an unfamiliar hesitancy in his voice.

Leia pondered the offer. “I think they’d be scared of you.”

“A lot of people are scared of me.”

“You’re also not cool enough to be a _King_ or _Queen_. I’ve told them about mom, about how she was Queen of an entire _planet_ , and now most of the students call me _Princess_ Leia.” Leia looked at her hands. “Our home is also pretty small. Just enough for me and daddy and I don’t want anyone else in it because it’s _ours_.”

Vader nodded. “If you ever _do_ want friends over, though…”

“Don’t worry! They’re happy to show off their big houses and lots of stuff and I get to try out new kinds of food.”

Vader reached out and pulled her into a gentle half-hug, and Leia felt warmth and love radiating towards her through the Force.

They arrived at the school, an imposing building that, apparently, had once housed the Jedi Temple. Leia could sometimes see…not quite ghosts, but _impressions_. Memories. It had led to more than one conversation with her father that had ended in, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

They ascended the broad stairs to the entryway, which her dad opened with a disdainful wave of his hand.

The halls were mostly empty, but the few people who were present scattered to either side in fear as Leia and Vader approached.

Leia sent love through the Force towards her father, who patted her head gently.

“You like how they’re afraid of me?” he asked her in a low voice.

She gave him a grin. “They’re scared of daddy because daddy is strong and they’re not. One day, I’m gonna be that strong!”

“Yes, you will,” Vader agreed.

“Hey, Princess!”

Leia looked over to see one of her human friends waving at her. She waved enthusiastically back, but before she could bounce over to him, her dad grabbed the back of her shirt to keep her close.

“You can introduce us later,” he told her.

She gave her dad the best pleading eyes she could, but he just shook his head and pushed her onward.

“Does daddy want to meet my friends?” Leia asked.

“As long as I don’t have to find out who their parents are,” he muttered. “Well, here we are.”

When Vader entered the room, the two teachers and one administrator who were waiting for them immediately balked. They hurriedly stood. The teacher Leia liked less looked between Leia and her dad a number of times before hesitantly saying: “You…Lord Vader. _You_ are Leia’s guardian?”

“I am her father,” he intoned solemnly.

“Oh,” he said, his voice weak.

Vader sat down and placed Leia on his lap.

“Make this quick,” he told them.

“Your… _daughter_ …is very bright,” the other teacher said, hiding hir fear better. “However, she does not always pay attention like she should in class. Some subjects she devours knowledge and is years ahead of her peers. However, there are other classes that she has called ‘stupid’ and pays no attention in. Perhaps…you could help her with her studies?”

“Could you? Could you could you?” Leia asked, bouncing up and down slightly.

“We will discuss the importance of paying adequate attention to her schooling,” Vader said, holding her still.   “And, yes, I will help you with some of your schoolwork.”

Leia cheered.

The teacher coughed. “She is also…selective about which rules apply to her.”

“Oh?” Vader asked, and Leia knew her dad was looking at her, even though the mask should have made it impossible to tell.

The teachers went through a list of Leia’s transgressions, most of which boiled down to, “If you tell her not to do something, or that something is off limits, she will treat it like a dare instead of an imperative to _not_ do something.”

“Leia and I will have a talk,” Vader semi-promised. Leia could tell her dad wasn’t angry with her about her getting in trouble for breaking stupid rules that shouldn’t be rules in the first place because they’re _dumb_.

“She has also managed to find her way into off-limits corridors, although she has behaved well enough to not leave the premises all together” the administrator sighed. “She has discovered the old Jedi archives that were hidden, along with having unearthed a domestic wing. While this has allowed us to expand our school and its boarding capabilities for off-world scholars, it’s not exactly easy to track her down.”

Leia felt her father looking down at her, so turned her head up and gave him a bright smile. “I like exploring!” she chirped.

“I know,” Vader said, a wry note to his voice. “We’ll discuss her exploration as well.”

The meeting lasted about 5 minutes longer before Vader and Leia were walking back towards their ship.

“You’re not mad at me,” Leia observed.

Vader snorted. “When I was 9, I was getting in _half_ as much trouble as you,” Vader said. “I do want you to stop exploring here, though.”

“What? But _why_?”

“Because not every part of the Jedi Temple was safe,” Vader told her as they walked. “And some of the Jedi who lived here were paranoid and may have left traps on their doors.”

“Oh, I found those,” Leia said. “They were no problem!”

Vader sighed heavily, the sound more pronounced as it cycled through his ventilator.

“Please, Leia,” he said. “You’re all I have left. I want you to be careful.”

“I am! I always get a droid to try to open the door first so it gets zapped instead of me.”

“Some of the things behind the doors might not be content to just zap the droid, though,” Vader commented. “I think I should start teaching you how to use a lightsaber. You’re old enough, and it will help protect you from anything that might be hiding in the rooms.”

Leia clamped her arms around Vader’s forearm and sent as much love as she could pouring through the Force at him. “I get trainee robes _and_ a lightsaber!”

“Well, not quite yet,” Vader corrected. “I’m going to start training you in how to _use_ one. You won’t get your own real, live lightsaber until you can make it on your own using materials you find, barter, buy, or steal.”

“But I want a lightsbaer _now_ ,” Leia whined.

“You’ll get it when you won’t cut your own arm off,” Vader said firmly. “So, promise me. No more wandering through the temple until you can put down a wampa using a _training_ lightsaber.”

“Okay, okay no more exploring,” Leia said. “Where are we getting the robes?”

“I discovered that the tailor who used to make the Jedi robes is still alive and running a business, although ze obviously downplays hir connection to the Jedi.”

“Because the Jedi are weak and stupid and dead.”

“Exactly. Ze is an exceptional craftsperson, though.”

“Princess, hold up!”

Leia turned to see Aoil running towards her, leaving a severely disapproving father behind.

Leia detached herself from her dad enough to return Aoil’s hug. Aoil was a human boy with white-blonde hair and eyes almost as pale. His fathers were on the Imperial Senate, and Leia had been over his residence a few times. His family was nice, although a little cold towards her, for reasons she didn’t know.

“So, this is your dad, huh?” he said, squinting up at her dad’s towering figure. “You don’t really look alike.”

Leia bopped him on the head. “That’s because he’s wearing a mask, dummy,” she scolded. “And be nicer! I’m always nice to your dads even though they don’t like me.”

Aoil took a step away from Leia and executed a perfectly bow that would have made their protocol instructors proud. “I’m Aoil, son of Astarte and Cornelius. Pleasure to meet you.”

“I know your fathers,” Vader said, a slight dryness to his voice. “It is nice to see that their son has more spine than they do.”

Aoil sent Leia a look, which Leia responded to with a shrug. “Aoil and I share protocol and history and literature,” Leia said. “We eat lunch together! I’m his protector.”

“No you’re not,” Aoil said. “I’m the one who keeps _you_ safe!”

“Nu-uh,” Leia said and shook her head. “You just keep me from doing fun things.”

“Finding out where the laundry chute goes is _not_ fun!”

“It’s more fun than math!”

Vader chuckled. “Thank you for trying to keep Leia out of trouble,” he said. “Try to keep it up.”

“Yes, sir,” Aoil responded. “Although I’m not really good at it…”

“You kept her from going down a laundry chute. I think that’s fairly successful. May the Force be with you, Aoil.”

Leia gave Aoil a parting hug before letting herself be led away back to their ship.

Vader put Leia in her seat with the Force before taking his own. After he had pulled away from the dock, he said: “You want to be a Sith, right?”

“Just like daddy!”

“Sith aren’t stupid.”

“I know. Daddy is the smartest person in the whole galaxy!”

“And you want to be smart, too, right?”

“Yup.”

“So you need to pay attention to _all_ of your studies.”

“What? But _why_?”

“Because a Sith needs to be smarter and stronger than anyone else so that they can squish anyone who tries to stand against them.”

Leia considered the statement. “But, why do I have to pay attention to learning math?”

“Because when you’re flying through the galaxy, you have to know how long it’ll take you to go somewhere and how fast you have to go and the best way to get there. You do all that using math.”

“Oh,” Leia said, drawling out the sound. “Okay.”

“And you need to learn lots of languages so you know what people are saying, so you know their secrets without them knowing yours. The more you know, the more power you have over other people.”

Leia considered his statement until they arrived at the tailor’s.

“Okay,” she said as Vader opened the ship door for her.

“Okay?” he repeated.

“I will be smarter than everyone else in the school,” she said firmly. “I will make daddy proud.”

“You don’t have to be smarter than _everyone_ ,” Vader said and gave her a short hug. “Because I’ll love you no matter what.”

“I know,” Leia said and hugged him back.

“Leia.”

“Yes, daddy?”

“Sith are more than school-smart, they’re also sneaky-smart.”

“Sneaky-smart?” Leia said as she took her dad’s hand.

Vader nodded. “So, you can keep on breaking stupid school rules. You just have to not get _caught_. I will punish you with doing chores without the help of the Force each time you get caught breaking a rule.”

“But if I don’t get caught?”

“Then I won’t know to punish you, now will I?”

Leia considered his words as they entered the shop. The clerk behind the desk scrambled to hir feet, twitching from nervousness.

“Lord Vader, it is an honor,” ze said.

“My daughter is to be fitted for trainee robes,” Vader said and pushed Leia forward slightly. “I assume you still remember the Jedi patterns?”

“Oh, yes, Lord Vader,” the tailor said. “Quite well. They were good customers.”

“I expect your best work.”

“Certainly, Lord Vader,” the tailor said as ze regarded Leia with large, multi-faceted eyes. “Come here, girl-child. Erm, please. If you would be so kind.”

Leia took a couple steps forward and gave the tailor a barely-polite bow. “Hello, my name is Leia. What’s yours?”

“The human vocal chords cannot pronounce my name, so please call me Tim.”

“Okay, Tim.”

“If you could please come this way…”

Leia followed the insectoid tailor to a back room, her father a large shadow behind them. The entire placed was filled with adjustable mirrors. For the next half hour, Leia and Vader were shown numerous fabrics and styles, until they decided on three that would be acceptable. Leia’s measurements were efficiently taken, given that all of Tim’s appendages could work independent of each other.

“It should not take more than a day or so to complete all the garments,” Tim said. “Will _you_ be picking them up, my Lord?”

“Leia and I will pick them up together,” Vader said. Leia gave both him and Tim a broad smile.

“Thank you for making my clothes, Mr. Tim,” she said. “I’ll remember you when I’m practicing with my lightsaber!”

For some reason, that made the tailor twitch. “Th-thank you, little lady Sith,” ze said instead.

“Come along, Leia,” Vader said and guided his daughter out the door.

The next place they stopped was an Imperial weapons store. Vader walked out with a few stick weapons, which Leia regarded curiously.

“They are meant to stun, not kill,” Vader said. “They will be your ‘lightsaber’ until you are ready and able to make your own.”

“Okay,” Leia said, straining to look around her seat and at the weapons. “Thank you, daddy.”

“You’re welcome, Leia.”

“I will be smart and sneaky-smart and strong and a really good Sith.”

“I am sure you will be,” Vader said as they pulled up to their home. “What would you like for dinner?”

“Does daddy know any recipes from Naboo? From mommy’s planet?”

“No,” he answered, sounding sad. “But I’ll find something.”

“Thank you so much!” Leia said and gave his arm a hug, trying to comfort him out of his sadness. She knew that even bringing up her mother caused him a little pain, but since he had begun to actually _talk_ about her, Leia wanted to know _everything_.

Through a droid at their home, Vader managed to uncover a recipe for Naboo cuisine that didn’t require _too_ much work. Leia didn’t really know how it was supposed to come out, but her dad had made it for her and it tasted passable, so that was what mattered.

“After you’re done eating, you’ll do an hour of homework, and then we’ll start your lightsaber training,” Vader said once Leia had finished eating.

Leia stared at him, slid out of her chair, then ran around the table to grab him in a tight hug.

“Thank you so much, daddy,” she said and kissed the cheek of his helmet.

“I love you, Leia,” Vader said softly in reply. “I will do anything to protect you, but I can’t be around all the time anymore. So I’m going to drill you _hard_. Do you understand that, young lady?”

Leia paused, then nodded. “So I can be a strong Sith, just like daddy!”

“Exactly.”

“…but do I _really_ have to do homework?”

“Yes. Go get your math and bring it here,” he said and gestured for a droid to clean off the table. “We’ll do it together.”

Leia trotted off to her room, riffled through her bag, and brought a tablet and her Stormtrooper plushie back to the kitchen table with her. She settled herself into the seat she had vacated, and Vader brought his chair over to sit next to her. She set the Stormtrooper on her lap, and tapped on the tablet until it brought up her math homework.

Vader put his hand on the back of her chair, partly swathing her in his cloak. She squirmed in a little happy dance at his presence, and forced her attention onto the homework.

“You’re a very smart girl,” Vader told her each time she worked through a problem to the correct answer, which always earned him a blinding smile from Leia. With his encouragement, she managed to complete the worksheet in just over an hour.

“Are you ready for your first lightsaber practice?” Vader asked once she had submitted the homework assignment digitally and turned on the tablet.

Leia’s head whipped around and she nodded so hard that she could feel her brain sloshing in her skull.

Vader laughed and picked her up with the Force. He carried her with the Force to a mostly-unused room, and set her down in the middle of it. There were a few weights against one wall, a helmet that looked a lot like the flight simulators Leia had used on the Imperial Destroyer thrown into a corner, a couple machines that Leia couldn’t divine the use of folded up on the other side, the weapons that Vader had bought at the store were lined up on the same side as the door, and a wall of mirrors was directly across from her.

Leia grinned, and her reflection grinned back.

However, between one blink and the next, the image changed.

A boy was looking at her from the mirror, his grin the same as hers. He had sandy brown hair, bright blue eyes, and skin tanned from sun. He was wearing an off-white tunic with tan pants tucked into abused brown boots. All were of poorer quality than Leia had ever seen. He looked to be about her age, maybe a little older, at least physically. Although she had never seen him before in her life, she _knew_ him. Knew him in the shape of his face, in the untapped power that hid behind his eyes. She wasn’t sure how they were connected, but she was certain that they’d meet somehow, someday, and then she would know _why_ they were connected.

She blinked again, and he was gone, replaced with her own, intrigued reflection.

“Is something wrong, Leia?” her dad asked.

She smiled up at him as he handed her a stick. “I saw someone in the mirror.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know his name. But I know him.” She paused. “Maybe I’ll find out more in my dreams tonight.”

“What did he look like?”

Leia gave her dad a rough description as she tested out the weight of the stick in her hands, the handle just a little too large for her grip.

“Well, if you do learn more about him in your dreams, please tell me,” he said.

“Okay daddy,” Leia chirped.

“Why don’t you give that a swing?” her dad asked.

Leia did so, and ended up staggering into the wall from the momentum.

Vader laughed, but the sound was kind.

“Come here, and I’ll teach you how to hold it correctly. Then, the basics.”

Leia didn’t know how long the lesson went, but by the time her father called a stop, her arms were shaking with exhaustion and she was drenched in sweat.

“Fighting is hard,” she whined as her dad guided her towards the shower.

“I never said it was easy,” he replied. “But, you want to be a strong Sith, right?”

“Yeah!”

“Then you’re going to learn how to fight until the only person who can beat you is me. Take a shower. I’ll tuck you into bed when you’re done.”

Leia climbed on the air using the Force until she could place a kiss on the cheek of her dad’s mask. “Okay! Thank you daddy.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said, the Force wrapping around her with love as she was lowered to the ground.

Leia cleaned herself off, put on her bathrobe once she was done, and meandered over to her bedroom. Her Stormtrooper plushie was back in her bed, and the blankets were pulled down. She stepped into her closet and changed into her pajamas before jumping into her bed. She snuggled down and pulled the plushie into her arms as her dad tucked her in securely.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Leia?”

“Can you tell me a story? The one about the podrace.”

She felt her father sit down on the edge of her bed. “Again?”

“I like the part where you jump off the cliff and soar in the air and land in front of Sebulba! That’s _so cool_.”

Vader chuckled, and gently patted her hair. “Alright. I’ll tell it again.”

Leia fell asleep to the sound of her father’s voice and the images of a race long in the past playing in her mind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars still doesn't belong to me.

Leia woke up knowing that something bad was going to happen. It wasn’t so much a matter of _if_ it was going to happen, but _when_. It made Leia temporarily nervous, but she pushed the concern assign. Her class was going on a sponsored field trip to a museum, which Leia was super excited about. Admittedly, she was one of only a handful of students actually looking forward to going. Apparently, it was a place that many nannies and caretaker droids of the wealthiest families took their children to when the parents were busy.

She changed into her uniform, but hesitated in front of the mirror in her room.

“The Force is with me,” she told her reflection. “I’ll be fine.”

She wandered into the kitchen and gave her grumpy-feeling daddy a kiss on the cheek of his mask. She knew-without-knowing that his work had been frustrating him lately, taking him off-planet more often than either of them would like.

“Love you, Daddy,” she told him before starting on the breakfast that was already laid out for her.

“I love you, too,” he responded, although his voice was subdued.

“What’s wrong?” Leia asked.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” he said and patted her arm gently. “Just promise me that you’ll pay attention to the Force today.”

“Yup,” Leia said and sent him comfort and love through the Force. His shoulders relaxed marginally.

“I wish I could have chaperoned the trip,” he grumbled. “But I can’t give off the impression that I’ve grown soft.”

“You’re not soft!” Leia said. “You’re super strong. Anyone who thinks you’re even a little weak is stupid.”

“Leia, you’re the most precious thing in the world to me,” he said and cupped her face in one of his hands. “So if someone tries to hurt you, I give you permission to squish them.”

Leia’s blinked. “Really? I can squish a _person_ if they try to hurt me?”

“Yes,” her dad said solemnly. “But only if they try to hurt you. I don’t need you going around squishing just any person who is annoying.”

“Okay. Can I squish them if they’re going to hurt my friends?”

“I suppose,” her dad grumbled. “But your safety comes first.”

“You’re the best, Daddy,” Leia told him before shoveling the rest of her breakfast down. “You’re…not going to be here when I get home. Right?”

“The Emperor needs me to go take care of some terrorists…some bad people,” he said. “It shouldn’t take long. I’ll be home before you know it. And you know I’m always with you through the Force.”

“Do I get to fly myself to school?” Leia asked.

“At 11, you’re technically not _supposed_ to, but you’re an exceptional pilot. I doubt any of the teachers or administrators will complain, and if they do, I’ll deal with them once I get back.”

Leia grinned and bounced happily out of her seat. She trotted around the table to her dad and flung herself onto him in a tight hug. “Thank you so much Daddy! I promise that I won’t get any tickets or into any accidents or anything. I’ll bring a droid so that people think it drove me.”

“You’re such a smart girl,” Vader said and ran his hand over her hair. “I love you so much.”

Leia sent love through the Force, and was met with the same from her father. She floated for a moment on the feeling before her dad pushed her gently off with the Force.

“Come. I have enough time to drop you off before I head out.”

Leia grabbed her bag and curled her hand around her dad’s as they walked out of their home and onto the landing pad. She was still getting subdued anxious waves from her dad, though, so she dug in her heels until he stopped walking. She climbed on air until she could wrap her arms around his neck, then buried her face into his shoulder and sent as much comfort and confidence and love through the Force as she could, trying to wrap him in it much like his love embraced her when he tucked her in at night.

He held her gently against him, and she felt a small tug in the Force that indicated he was probably trying to ground himself in her love. His breath through the ventilator slowed to a more normal pace, and she pulled away once she was sure he was calmer.

“Dee and Kay can stay over,” Leia said. “To guard me when I’m sleeping and stuff. Kay likes cooking and Dee likes not sleeping in the retired trooper barracks.”

Kay and Dee were two clone troopers that had been honorably discharged from serving on her dad’s Imperial Destroyer because they had gotten too old. They had served as her babysitters every now and then, and Leia liked them well enough to not get into too much trouble on their watch.

Her dad seemed to consider her offer, then nodded. “I will contact them before I leave. They will be waiting to pick you up once you return to school. And remember—just because you _can_ use the Force to manipulate their minds doesn’t mean you _should_. Dee was seeing pink elephants in the strangest places for weeks after you pulled that prank on him.”

Leia grinned sheepishly as her father put her in the passenger seat. “It was funny!”

“And no making walls disappear or appear.”

“But _D_ _ad_ —”

“They are the only clone troopers who are willing to watch over you when I can’t,” Vader said as they pulled away from their home. “I’d like them to stick around until you’re old enough to not need caretakers.”

Vader deftly maneuvered the ship through Coruscant’s never-ending flow of traffic, Leia watching all the lights and beings below her. Every time she looked down, she saw a type of sentient being she had never seen before. Coruscant was a magical, terrifying place, and she was glad to call it home.

Her dad pulled up to the drop off, and Leia hopped out, her bag slung over her shoulders. “Bye-bye!”

Her dad sent her love through the Force, and she basked in it before sending it back. She could _feel_ him smile before he pulled away.

“I’ve never seen that kind of droid before,” Dipika said. She was a classmate of Leia’s, and halfway between a friend and enemy. She was a rival, sort of. They pissed each other off enough that they pushed each other to achieve instead of coasting, which Leia liked. Dipika challenged her in a way the other students didn’t. It was fun.

Dipika came from a planet of extremophiles, so had to wear special gear in order to survive in the moderate environment of Coruscant. Leia occasionally daydreamed about taking it away from Dipika, but she didn’t _really_ want to hurt the girl, so never would. For all that she was annoying, she was an annoying that Leia enjoyed.

“That’s because he wasn’t a _droid_ ,” Leia snapped, bristling. “He’s my dad!”

“He didn’t look very human,” Dipika said and turned away to walk into the school.

Leia caught up with her easily.   “Yeah, well, he’s stronger than anyone else in the galaxy, so it doesn’t matter what he looks like.”

Dipika snorted derisively, so Leia stuck out her tongue at the girl, held her head high and walked into the school with all the haughtiness that her young body could muster. Aoil and a few of her other friends were waiting in the corridor, chattering as they were watched over by parents and teachers.

“Hello, Princess,” Aoil said and Leia gave him a quick hug. “I still can’t believe you’re actually _excited_ for this.”

“We don’t have _protocol_ class!” Leia said in response.

“You really hate that class, huh?”

“It’s not that I _hate_ it…” Leia said. “It’s just that the droid who teaches it is boring.”

“You think _all_ droids are boring,” Aoil pointed out.

“Well, it’s ‘cause they are,” Leia grumbled.

Leia and her classmates were shortly shuttled onto a ship that brought them to the museum.

It was dedicated to the history of the Empire, spanning from the time of the Republic through the Clone Wars and into the establishment and prosperity of the Galactic Empire. Leia already knew some of it from her dad’s stories. Still, it would be interesting and a break from normal classes, and both of those were good things.

The museum was a solid mass of stone, built to be intimidating. There were flourishes that spoke of a time prior to the Empire, but they were just pretty little frills—distantly interesting, but unimportant.

Leia scrunched up some of the carpet that led to the entrance so Dipika stumbled over it, but caught her by the arm before she could faceplant into the floor and break something important in her equipment.

“Get off,” Dipika said and ripped her arm away.

Leia just smiled and walked further into the museum.

Surrounding them was cool, dark stone. It loomed over them as they walked into the main rotunda, but as Leia stood in the middle of the Imperial symbol, a slow, creeping dread came upon her. She looked around, trying to pinpoint the source, and her eyes fell on a group of security guards who were talking among themselves. Leia caught more than one of them furtively looking at her school group.

_This is it,_ she thought, an odd calm descending on her, the Force rising up within her, coiling through her body and leaving her feeling strong and giddy. _This is where the bad thing is going to happen. And they are going to make the bad thing happen. And then I will be the bad thing to happen to them._

She caught one of the guards’ eyes and gave them a bright smile before allowing herself to be led away with the other students.

Leia linked her arms with Aoil and Dipika, to their surprises. “C’mon, don’t look so bored,” she told them. “Something exciting is going to happen!”

Dipika scoffed and pulled her arm away. “Stop touching me.”

“Why?” Leia said and poked Dipika in the arm.

Aoil groaned. “Wrong thing to say.”

Leia stuck close to Dipika after that, and she knew that they would have started a game of not-really-hide-and-seek if the adults watching over them hadn’t kept them in the group. As it was, it devolved into a game of tag as they wove in-between students, droids, and adults, annoying everyone in the process as Aoil begged them to stop.

The museum held ghosts like the Temple held ghosts, whispers of conversations and images. Most didn’t move far from where the artifact or recording was, but one ghost in particular caught her attention.

It was a man, a powerful-looking human male, clothed in the robes of a Jedi. His demeanor was proud and commanding, and his eyes hard and penetrating. He had no hair on his head and darker skin, and he stood beside a case that held a deactivated lightsaber. She trotted over to the display, dodging reaching hands of adults. She heard someone yell her name but ignored them. She stopped in front of the man, who seemed at least partly aware, as his eyes fixated on her. She gave him her most charming smile and bowed just enough to be polite.

His lips twitched into a frown, although Leia had a feeling that he was fighting to not smile at her insolence. She had gotten that a lot when she lived on the Imperial Destroyer, so just smiled wider.

“Leia!” one of her teachers snapped and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“I’m allowed to look at historical things,” Leia answered, but the teacher’s arrival had dissipated the ghost. Leia looked at the plaque—it read: Jedi Master Mace Windu’s lightsaber.

“You should stay with the group.”

“Why? I’m less of a target if I’m alone because I can hide and stuff. You just make a, a, uh, bait ball by keeping us all together.”

The teacher sighed. “We are not like fish from Naboo. We keep you together so that bad people don’t abduct or hurt you. The adults and guards can protect you only if they know where you are.”

“The guards won’t protect us,” Leia said, her voice ringing with surety.

“They better protect us, since that’s what they’re paid to do,” the teacher grumbled and tugged her away. “Come, Leia.”

“That’s _Princess_ Leia,” Leia corrected before slipping out of the teacher’s grip and gliding proudly back to the group.

Aoil took a hold of her hand and said, “I don’t want you leaving my side.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be able to protect you even without being with you,” Leia told him and squeezed his hand before dragging him along behind her as she went to investigate another ghost-memory.

They were in the hall explaining how the Empire defeated the Separatists and formed into the one Galactic Empire, watching a dramatic holo-recording when the shots were fired. Leia watched as red light burned through one of the chaperone’s clothes, heard his final, surprised gasp, and watched him crumple to the floor. She _felt_ him die.

It was intriguing.

However, she had more important people to worry about.   She pulled Aoil behind her and her stunner-saber was in her hand, although not yet turned on; her dad still insisted that she was too young to have something that could actually cut through anything, like her arms, but had agreed that she needed _some_ protection, so they had come up with a kinda-sorta-not-really lightsaber that she could use.

The rest of the group huddled together in one giant bait ball behind her, although Dipika and a another girl from a more warlike culture stood on either side of Leia, cultural weapons in their hands. The firefight was short, and, in the end, the droids and adults that were supposed to be watching over them lay broken on the floor while only a few of the supposedly security guards were unmoving. A few ghosts still clung to the bodies, but they quickly were absorbed back into the Force.

With her and her classmates pressed up against a wall, their chances weren’t particularly good if the not-guards wanted them _dead_. Leia would make them work for it, though.

There were a _lot_ of them, though. There were at least two at each entrance/exit to the hallway, a couple on the balcony above them, and four directly across from them had their blasters trained on the group of students.

One of the students behind Leia began to cry.

“Take care of her,” Leia told Aoil in a whisper and let go of his hand. He scurried away, although Leia never took her eyes off of the bad people.

“Are you going to kill us?” Dipika asked, her voice strong and sharp even through her gear.

Three of the bad guys laughed as a fourth answered: “You’re worth more alive than dead, brat. Although if your parents don’t pay up, well…”

The bad people made the mistake of advancing on them, apparently thinking that their larger bodies would be intimidating. Leia knew that point blank shots were more difficult to make than long range ones, so they clearly assumed that the students wouldn’t, or couldn’t, fight back.

Dipika lunged at the closest bad person when ze got close enough. Her fury surprised the bad person, who was thrown off balance by her attack. They struggled for the gun the bad person held. Dipika succeeded in disarming the bad person, the blaster clattering to the ground. Before she could pick it up, the bad person grabbed her by the shoulder and ripped her survival equipment away. Dipika blinked against the bright light, then screamed, the sound going from piercing to painful gurgling in a second. Bright red blood dribbled out of her nose, mouth, and eyes. Her pain and terror rippled through the Force. At the same time, the other girl seemed to vanish, only to reappear behind another bad person. She slashed at the person’s legs, but the bad person was wearing armor beneath the uniform, so her knife skittered across it without doing damage.

As that was happening, the other bad people had shot at Dipika’s quivering form.

Leia barely got her stunner-saber in between Dipika and the blaster shots, deflecting the bolts into the walls.

Fear swelled around her.

She couldn’t be afraid, though. She was a _Sith_. Sith made other people scared, they weren’t scared by other people. Still, the sheer intensity of the fear from those behind her was enough to make her hesitate.

Dipika’s pain lanced through the Force and cut through the haze of fear that had momentarily paralyzed her.

The knowledge that her friends’ lives hung in the balance, that these bad people weren’t afraid to hurt them, made the Force _burn_ within her.

_These are the bad people I’m allowed to squish,_ she thought, focusing on the bad person who had hurt Dipika.

Leia’s hand shot out and she clenched it into a fist. The Force responded to her intent, and her emotion was so intense, so _focused_ , that the bad persons neck collapsed quickly enough and hard enough to break their spine and sever their head from their shoulders.

Leia paid no attention to them as their body dropped, and turned her attention to the one the other girl had attacked. The girl was unmoving against a far wall, and Leia could feel her life slipping towards the Force. Leia’s intent moved from her classmate to the bad person, and before ze could raise hir weapon, Leia had clenched her fist again. Hir head popped off hir body like water from a bottle that had been squeezed as hir sides collapsed inward.

She knew blaster bolts were coming from bad people stationed at a few of the doorways, above her, and across from her, so she threw a Force shield up around her and her classmates, deflecting the incoming fire so that the ceiling and walls were riddled with black, sooty marks. The blaster fire intensified, and Leia found herself struggling to keep up the shield under the onslaught.

So, she began to absorb the blaster energy until the dome around her and her classmates glowed a vibrant red.

Like her dad’s lightsaber.

She released the blaster energy she had contained and it exploded out from her in all directions. She heard glass shatter, and was sure she vaporized a few pieces of history, but was equally sure that she had vaporized a lot of the bad people as well.

She was trembling, exhausted, but kept her grip on her stunsaber. The fight might not be over yet, and she still had people to protect.

She saw movement in the smoke that came off smoldering corpses and slipped into a fighting stance, her stunsaber at the ready. The Force still pulsed within her, steadied her, but it was beginning to burn in a bad way.

Leia didn’t recognize the person that stepped through the smoke, but they felt dangerous. Still, they hadn’t attacked Leia or her friends, so she couldn’t squish them yet. But, if they tried anything funny, she most definitely would.

Leia _knew_ that unless her sort-of-rival received medical attention _soon_ that Dipika would most definitely not survive. Whatever happened had to end quickly and decisively. She spared a glance over her shoulder to see that one of her classmates had tried to strap Dipika’s survival gear back on, but they didn’t know how to fully lock the seals, so the air that was poison to her was leaking in anyway.

Leia turned back to the bad person, who was examining one of the charred corpses.

“Either do something or go away!” Leia snarled, although she could hear tears in her voice. She really didn’t want Dipika to die, but as long as the bad person was around, she couldn’t help her. Not that she knew _how_ she was going to help her rival, just that she would.

“I haven’t seen someone with your kind of power since the Clone Wars,” the bad person said, their voice measured and calm.

“Go away!” Leia said, and there was enough strength in her voice that the bad person had actually taken two steps towards the door before they stopped themselves.

“I can’t leave you alive,” the bad person said, sounding a little sad. “Can’t let the Empire have someone like you on their side.”

However, before the bad person could do anything, Leia had squished their head in. It burst like an overripe melon.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Leia didn’t care. There were sounds of footsteps running _away_ from her and terrified yelling, which told Leia that there probably wouldn’t be any more trouble.

Leia deactivated her stunsaber, turned, crouched down next to Dipika, and gently picked up her hand. She closed her eyes and focused on her rival. She couldn’t let Dipika die. If she could use the Force to squish things, surely she could use it to preserve things.

Leia used the Force to find where all the locking mechanisms were and frantically pushed them into place before returning her attention to Dipika’s breathing. It was still wet and labored, but Leia knew that at least no more bad air would get to her.

Dipika was drowning in the blood that had filled her lungs. Leia _had_ to do something.

“Turn her over,” Leia murmured, more to herself, to the Force, than to anyone in particular. The filter on the girl’s mask would allow liquid to pass through. Leia felt that she might push the blood in Dipika’s lungs out. She’d have to be super careful, but she didn’t want her friend to die.

She did it by inches, by fluttering heartbeats, but gradually, a thin stream of liquid began to dribble out of the mask’s filter.

Leia was startled violently back to herself when someone tried to draw Dipika away from her. Her head snapped up and she instinctively tried to cover Dipika’s body with her own, her lips contorted into a snarl. However, she recognized the emergency medical help insignia on the person’s clothing, and sat back onto her heels, allowing Dipika to be taken away on a stretcher, a droid floating beside her and taking her vitals as they ran away.

“Aoil,” she murmured as she came back to herself. “Where is he? Is he okay?”

She staggered to her feet, but exhaustion settled on her. It felt the same as when she stayed up too late practicing with the Force. Squishing people took a lot more energy and effort than squishing fruit or droids or objects. It had felt a little like a cross between a rock and an unripe fruit.

She turned around in a daze, trying to find something familiar to stabilize herself with. Her confusion was broken by the arrival of a human medic.

“Hello, little lady,” the medic said and got down on one knee so that she was eye level to Leia. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Leia responded. “Is Aoil okay? Will Dipika be okay? What about the girl who the bad person threw into the wall? Is she still around? The adults are all dead.”

“Everyone will be fine,” the medic lied. “How are _you_?”

“Fine,” Leia answered.

“You’re shaking. Do you need to lie down?”

“No! I need to know that Dipika will be okay! That she won’t die!” Leia snapped, her voice high and tight.

“She’ll be getting the best treatment the Empire can offer.”

Leia knew that _that_ , at least, wasn’t a lie.

“Come with me,” the medic said as she stood. She offered Leia her hand. “We don’t think that there are any more, ah, bad people around, but we still want to get you and your classmates somewhere safe.”

The idea of there being _more_ bad people threw Leia into a panic. She extended her Force senses as far as she could, briefly brushing against the minds of everyone nearby. What she got the most of was concern, shock, disgust, and anger. There were a few that felt like they were weighing what had happened, but there was no initiative. There were still bad people in the area, but there would be no more attacks.

_They better not_ , Leia snarled internally. _The next time they try something stupid, I’ll be even stronger, and then_ none _of my friends will get hurt._

“Do you know what happened here?” the medic asked her, her voice soft and soothing. She hadn’t moved from her spot, her hand still extended in an offer of comfort and strength.

“They were pretending to be security,” Leia said. “Then they attacked. The adults died.”

Leia gingerly took the medic’s hand, wrapping her fingers around the adult’s.

The medic guided Leia away, keeping her body between Leia and the devastation she had caused. She knew that the medic was watching her, examining her, likely with some sort of bionic implant, but didn’t entirely care. She was _tired_ , but anger still buzzed beneath her skin.

_How could they not tell that the guards were bad people?_ She wondered, eyes sliding to a covered corpse that was being wheeled away. _How could they not protect us? Wasn’t that why they were with us?_

“Do you need someone to talk to?”

Leia looked up at the medic. “Why?”

“Well, you seem to be capable of talking about what happened,” the medic explained. “Most of the other students didn’t look, and the ones that did won’t talk about what they saw.”

“Oh. It’s okay. I’ll talk to Daddy when I see him.”

Dee and Kay met Leia when she was finally led out of the museum, and Dee immediately picked her up and held her to his chest. Leia turned her head into his body and breathed in his concern and anger. She could distantly hear Kay yelling at someone.

“We’ll take care of Lady Skywalker from here,” Dee said, his voice frigid.

“She may need medical attention,” the medic protested.

“I want Daddy,” she told Dee, her voice lost in the folds of his clothing.

“We’ll get in touch with him, sweetheart,” Dee told her. He snapped a few unkind words in Mandalorian at a school official who approached them, then strode off with Leia.

“You, little Lady, are terrifying,” Kay told her when he joined her and Dee in their ship. Dee was still holding her, keeping her in his lap. Leia didn’t mind, for once.

“Daddy said I could squish bad people,” Leia told him.

“Yeah, well, you sure did that and more,” Dee drawled as Kay stepped into the driver’s seat. “Wonder what they’ll think of the security footage.”

Kay snorted. “You know exactly what they’ll think—that the footage was doctored. Very few people believe in the Force anymore, and they won’t think a little girl could do what the little Lady did, anyway.”

“Is Dipika going to be okay?” Leia asked, uncurling enough to look up at Dee’s rugged features.

Dee sighed. “I really don’t know. They wouldn’t tell us anything. Can tell we’re former Troopers. Not a lot of sentients consider us trustworthy.”

“Well, _I_ like you.”

“I know you do,” Dee said. “Although I’m not sure whether or not that’s comforting. Being liked by you and your father can be dangerous to my health.”

Leia giggled and snuggled back against his chest, holding lightly onto his clothing.

The rest of the drive was in silence, and Leia was grateful to walk back into her home. She shucked her shoes off and let her toes curl into the carpet, like the first day she had moved in. She took a deep breath and extended her arms so they were perpendicular to her body. She swept them up until her fingertips touched over her head, then moved her hands down the front of her body, not quite touching her clothing. She let out a long, slow exhale as she did so.

She felt a little better, but she still wanted to talk to her dad.

“Welp, there’s already a message on the machine,” Dee said as Kay prepared some calming herbal concoction in the kitchen.

“It’s Daddy,” Leia said with certainty.

“Yup,” Dee agreed. “Let’s just call him.”

Leia wandered over to where the video transmission would happen, and, after a minute or so, the connection blazed to life.

For a moment, Leia just _looked_ at her father. It was harder to read him by just an image, but she could see the tension in his shoulders and arms.

“Are you alright?” he asked her.

Leia nodded. “I’m okay, I think.”

“You think?”

“I squished three bad people.”

There was a silence before Vader nodded. “Good.”

“Good?”

“They were going to hurt you?”

“They tried to kill Dipika and hurt another girl,” Leia snarled, even the _memory_ making her angry. “And then they shot at me and my classmates.”

“They _shot_ at you?” Vader yelled, his voice cracking slightly from fury.

“But I’m okay,” Leia assured him. “The Force protected me.”

Her dad let out a heavy sigh. “How did it _feel_ to squish the bad people, Leia?”

Leia paused, swinging her legs between the chair’s legs and said: “I dunno.”

“Did you like it? Not like it?”

“They hurt my friends and I wanted them to stop hurting my friends so I hurt them enough that they’d never be able to hurt my friends again,” Leia said. She smiled faintly. “It felt different when they died. The adults died and I felt them go into the Force, but it was gentle. They just…slipped away.” She paused. “It was not gentle for the bad people.”

“Would you do it again?”

“I will squish _anyone_ who tries to hurt me or my friends,” Leia said. “ _Especially_ if they try to hurt you and you don’t squish them first.”

Her dad chuckled slightly. “Don’t worry about me. I’m proud of you, Leia.”

“Really?”

“You used the Force very well,” he said, leaning slightly forward in the image. “It takes a lot to do what you did.”

“I’m _tired_ ,” Leia half-whined.

“I bet you are,” her dad agreed. “I want you to have dinner and then let Kay tuck you in for me. And tomorrow I want you to tell me all about your dreams and what happened in them and what you did at the museum. You look like you’re going to fall asleep sitting up.”

Leia yawned. “But I want to talk to daddy more!”

“And I want to talk to you more,” her dad responded, his voice gentle. “I love you so much, and I’m so proud of what you did. Squishing those bad people has helped me _and_ kept your friends safe.”

Leia paused. “Will my classmates be scared of me now? Like they’re scared of you?”

“Probably not,” her dad said. “They won’t believe that you’re as strong and smart as you are.”

“Dee said that, too.”

“Dee is right, in this case,” Vader said, his voice dry. “But, even if they don’t believe you’re strong, know this—you _are_.”

Leia felt warmth and pride slowly suffuse her, but it was tempered by a nagging question: “I know that me and the Force is our secret. What if someone remembers? What if they tell other people?”

“Then you will know whether or not they are your friend or enemy.”

Leia bit her lip. “But what if they used to be my friend? I squished people _because_ they were going to hurt my friends!”

“Leia.”

“Yes, daddy?”

“I don’t have many friends,” he told her, his voice quiet. “It’s because I am strong. The weak, the small-minded, they _fear_ the strong, and sometimes do stupid things because they are afraid. If they’re weak enough to be afraid of you, they shouldn’t be your friends anyway.”

Leia slowly nodded. “Okay. I guess.”

“I love you, Leia.”

“I love you, too, Daddy.”

“And I am so proud of how strong you are.”

“I’m going to be as strong as daddy some day!”

“You will,” he agreed, certainty in his voice.

That made Leia smile.

“Go have dinner,” her dad said. “Rest. You’ll feel better soon. And tomorrow you can tell me all about how you saved everyone and squished the bad guys.”

Leia’s smile widened into a grin. “Okay!”

“Sleep well, Leia. Remember that I will _always_ love you.”

“And I will always love Daddy!” Leia replied around a yawn.

“I’ll be back with you either tomorrow or the day after,” her dad told her. “Don’t forget to practice your meditation and ask Dee if he’ll teach you how to shoot a blaster.”

“I am _not_ teaching an eleven year old gi—” Dee’s mouth clicked shut when Vader cut the transmission. “Damn.”

“So… _are_ you going to teach me?” Leia asked as she walked over to where Kay had laid out his herbal tea and a plate of Mandalorian cuisine for her.

“No,” Dee growled and took a seat beside her, glaring at his own plate.

Kay sat down on Leia’s other side and said, “Blasters are less messy than crushing people with the Force, and it’s important to know how to use an enemy’s strength against them.”

“You are _not_ advocating teaching her how to shoot!”

“How can it hurt?” Kay said with a shrug. “I’ll at least teach her the different kinds of blasters and what they do. That’s probably as much as we can cover until Lord Vader comes back anyway.”

Leia munched on her dinner as Dee and Kay argued over blasters and how suitable it was to teach her _anything_ about them.

“I’m gonna shower now,” she said once she was done eating. She put her dishes in the sink with a wave of her hand, the Force coming easily to her, although it tugged on her core, deepening her exhaustion.

She almost fell asleep in the shower, and barely managed to pull on her pajamas before tumbling into bed. She felt Kay nudge her plushie Stormtrooper under her arm and tuck her securely in before she drifted off to sleep.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars still does not belong to me.

The scenery was completely unfamiliar. Gone were the bright lights and dark shadows of Coruscant. Instead, Leia found herself surrounded by pale oranges, reds, and browns. There was sand everywhere. The silence was oppressive.

She turned around. Not far away was a small abode, set into the earth and almost the same color of the hard-packed earth around her. Its construction fit the desert environment; however, it was fairly generic without any remarkable markings to help her identify the planet.

The twin stars in the sky narrowed down the possible star systems, but almost all planets that supported life in binary star systems were hot, and more often than not desert-like. There were, of course, exceptions.

She had never left Coruscant for a desert planet, and holo-dramas were rarely placed on desert planets. They simply weren’t visually interesting enough. She had no memory of the place.

It still felt weirdly familiar.

Leia jumped when a form ran _through_ her.

Once there were a few steps between them, she had a better look—it was a human boy. He had wide blue eyes, fly-away dirty-blonde hair, and lightly tanned skin. Leia _knew_ that she had seen him before, although she wasn’t sure how or when or where. Judging from the state of his clothes and generally sloppy appearance, he was nobody special. Still, his appearance was familiar. She had seen his eyes before.

He had a spaceship in his hand and was running around with it swooping up and down around him.

 _Only a bad pilot would fly like that,_ Leia thought critically. _Even if it is fun._

She paced him as he ran around the dusty yard, her passage making no sound or influence on the surroundings. He didn’t seem to register her presence.

Nonetheless, he _felt_ familiar. She knew him.

_Maybe he’s also a Sith?_

However, the Force-signature she sought for didn’t have the same kind of lightning tang that her father’s did, and was completely out of phase with her own. So, not a Sith, but Force-sensitive for certain, if not a Force-user.

_A Jedi, then?_

The notion was intriguing. But, why would she be having a dream, if what she was experiencing counted as a dream, of a young Jedi? Was she in the past? Or in the future? It didn’t feel like a memory or a precognitive dream. It felt more like a step to the side—she was in the same era, just a different place.

It was only when he turned to face her full-on that the memory of the boy in the mirror resurfaced.

 _Why am I seeing you again?_ She wondered, curiosity consuming her.

Even though she was pretty sure that she wouldn’t touch flesh, she reached out and brushed her fingertips against the back of his hand.

To her surprise, he startled as if zapped, although from how his eyes flickered back and forth, he didn’t _see_ her. The toy ship clattered to the ground, forgotten in favor of finding her.

“Who’s there?” he demanded. When Leia didn’t answer, he continued: “My name is Luke Lars.”

 _Luke Lars?_ Leia thought. _That’s a boring name. But Jedi are boring, so I guess it fits._

“I know you’re there,” he said, a challenge in his voice. “Who are you?”

Leia remained silent. The only person she reliably answered to was her father, not some stupid boy. She wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear her anyway.

“I’m a Jedi,” Luke said, but there was a hesitation in the proclamation, which he followed up with, “Well, sort of. I’m still in training. But Ben says that I’ll be a Jedi! Someday. When I’m ready. Whatever that means.”

“Why would you want to be a _Jedi_?” Leia asked, incredulous.

Luke squinted, probably in an attempt to hear better.

“I _knew_ it! I knew you were really there! Just, could you speak a little louder?”

Leia shook her head. If Luke really was a Jedi-in-training, whoever this Ben was was doing a poor job of training him. Admittedly, Leia didn’t entirely know what she was doing or how she was doing it, but at least _she_ could hear and see everything clearly. That meant she was stronger than him, and that was just confirmation to her that Sith were better than Jedi.

“Ben says that there aren’t a lot of Jedi left, that he and I may be the last, or one of the last,” Luke continued. “Are you a Jedi? I can feel you in the Force, but you feel…different?”

“I’m a Sith,” Leia answered confidently. Because she _was_ a Sith, like her dad. She might not know everything yet, but she knew what she was, and she was a Sith.

Luke’s face screwed up again in an attempt to hear her. The longer she stared at him, the longer he stared back at her, the more certain she was that he was an older version of the boy she had seen on the day she began her lightsaber training.

Leia could distantly hear her alarm clock going off. Wherever she was, she couldn’t stay any longer. Sure, she was curious about this pseudo-Jedi. She wanted to know _why_ she was drawn to see him, how she had found him, and why she would have been brought to him. However, all those questions could wait. She had to check on Dipika and go to school and tell her dad about everything. She would see Luke again. She was an important person and had important things to do, unlike him. She turned away from him and answered the call of her alarm clock.

She stared blearily up at the ceiling. There were times she had gone to bed tired, but she always woke up more-or-less refreshed. However, exhaustion clung to her. Her insides felt burnt. She felt stretched thin.

 _I think I did too much yesterday,_ she thought as she struggled to lurch out of bed.

She shoved the blankets off and swung her feet over the side of the bed, and had to catch her breath from how much everything ached. Her plushie Stormtrooper fell off the edge, but she caught it with the Force before it could hit the floor. Admittedly, just doing _that_ sent a flash of fire through her insides. That didn’t matter, though. She’d recover. She was a Sith, and Sith were strong. The weakness would be gone soon. She brought her plushie back to her and held it against her body as she stood and trudged her way to the kitchen, where she heard Kay preparing breakfast.

“Good morning, little Lady,” Kay told her as Dee nursed a cup of some kind of stimulant. “Did you sleep well?”

“Kinda,” Leia hedged and slid into one of the chairs, where Kay deposited a cup of tea, followed shortly by a plate of breakfast. “Are you going to be taking me to school or—”

“I will be driving,” Dee growled into his mug, still waking up. “Still can’t believe you already know how to _fly_.”

“Dad was flying podracers when he was younger than me,” Leia pointed out between bites. “And those are a lot more dangerous.”

“Doesn’t mean you _should_ be able to fly anything,” Dee muttered in response.

Once Leia had finished and changed into her school uniform, she met Dee on the platform attached to her home. He opened the passenger door for her before taking a seat in the driver’s.

“You’ll take me to see Dipika if she’s not out of the hospital, right?” Leia said.

“Well, when you put it like _that_ , don’t have much choice, do I?”

Leia gave him as cheerful a smile she could manage when being crushed under the weight of her tiredness.

They pulled up to her school and Dee said, “No squishing people today, okay? Please?”

“I don’t feel any bad people around here today,” Leia told him. “So I won’t.”

She didn’t think she could, anyway.

“Thanks,” Dee said, sounding relieved. “Call when you’re ready to go visit Dipika.”

“You’re the best,” Leia said and gave him a hug before heading off into the school.

Whispers followed her through the halls as she searched for Aoil or Dipika, but Leia paid them no mind. She actually took some pleasure in the swell of fear as she approached and relief after she had passed. That she was feared meant she was strong. That she was strong meant that she was like her dad. And that was a very good thing.

When she finally saw Aoil she nearly tackled him in a hug.

“You’re okay!” she said when she finally let him go.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice subdued. She couldn’t quite pin down the emotion she was getting from him, but he hadn’t pulled away from her and was meeting her eyes, and both of those were good.

“Really?” she pressed. “You didn’t get hurt or anything?”

“No, no, I didn’t,” he said. “It’s just…at lunch, do you think we can go exploring?”

Leia was cautiously excited, the prospect of exploring with Aoil pushing away some of her tiredness. “Sure! I can take you to the new secret place I found.”

“Thanks.”

“No, thank _you_ ,” Leia said and squeezed his arm gently. “We haven’t gone exploring together lately.”

“Yeah,” Aoil said his voice distracted. “I heard they’re gonna have a meeting or something, for those of us who were at the field trip yesterday. To make sure we’re feeling okay and stuff.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well, because there are some people who _aren’t_ okay.”

Leia frowned, confused and curious. “But, no one was hurt. I protected everyone.”

“It might not be physical hurt,” Aoil said. “Some saw their parents or siblings or caretakers die and…what you did to the people was kinda gross.”

Leia shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, but…” he paused, then said: “Are _you_ doing okay, Princess?”

“Of course!” Leia answered. “I talked about it all with Daddy.”

“Your dad knows about…” Aoil clenched his fist.

“Oh, yes,” Leia said. “He’s the one who teaches me how to do that stuff!”

Aoil fell silent, and Leia could _feel_ that he was thinking really hard.

“Okay,” he eventually said.

“So…you were serious about going exploring?” Leia asked.

“Yup.”

“At lunch?”

“Well, it might be better after school,” Aoil said. “So that we don’t have to worry about missing class or getting caught.”

Leia shook her head. “I have to check on Dipika if she isn’t here today.” She hesitated and asked in a quiet voice, “She _is_ okay, right?”

“Yeah, think so,” Aoil said equally quietly.

“Good,” Leia replied firmly. “So, we’ll go adventuring at lunch and make it back in time for Protocol.”

“Okay.”

Leia gave Aoil another hug before taking his hand and dragging him behind her to class.

The only thing that was _really_ different was that Leia and her classmates were brought to what had once been a lightsaber practice studio and separated into cultures. Death and violence were discussed, as well as resources for grieving and trauma specific to their culture—Leia was included into Coruscant-type cultures instead of Naboo or Tatooine, since Coruscant was where she spent her life, even if her genetics came from those planets, and humans had a fairly standard set of views towards life and death.

Leia was surprised to find out how many of her classmates knew someone who had died. She tried to scrap up sympathy or empathy for their loss, but felt mostly disdain. _Her_ dad was strong. He wouldn’t have died to something as stupid a blaster fire.

Leia could tell that some of her classmates took comfort in being able to share their experience and emotions, so Leia _listened_ , trying to hear what wasn’t being said. She listened for the lies, and why they were being told.

Aoil lied about how he felt, and Leia had the feeling that part of it was to protect _her_ , which was odd. She didn’t need protecting. Some just liked having a captive audience, some were genuinely upset. A few of the ones who Leia felt needed to speak the most remained silent.

Leia was happy that she had the choice of _not_ sharing, and while that got her concerned looks from the adults, all her classmates seemed to understand why _she_ didn’t want to talk. What would she say, anyway?

That was the one thing that had been missing when the others talked about their experiences and how they felt—what Leia had done. It made Leia suspicious. If Aoil remembered what she had done, surely the others could, too. At least a few of them must have looked out of the bait ball. Were they scared she would do the same thing to them if they said something?

After everyone had had the opportunity to share their experience and feelings, they were returned to class. They had missed their first two classes, which was annoying, since those were the two classes that Leia liked best.

“Wish I could’ve missed Protocol,” Leia grumbled to Aoil, who patted her shoulder in something like comfort. “You lied when you talked.”

Aoil startled and said, “You could tell?”

“Yeah.”

“I…kinda want to talk to you about some stuff. When we’re exploring.”

“Okdokie.”

They made it to lunch without incident, and once the lunch aides were distracted, Leia and Aoil slipped away. Leia knew most of the halls of the former Jedi Temple by heart, but there was always more to explore. She had found the library recently, and wanted to spend more time there. It wasn’t a secret—she’d tell the adults about it eventually—so she was happy to share it with Aoil. She figured he’d like it anyway. He enjoyed reading and learning and there was probably more to the library than _just_ Jedi-Force-stuff.  

Once they were passing through a newly reopened dormitory wing, Aoil said, “How’d you do it?”

“Do what? The squishing?”

“Y-yeah.”

Leia looked at him as they walked, weighing whether or not she could trust him. He had been one of the first friends she made when she came to Corsucant and was the only person who had come over to her home and met her dad. Aoil was even the first to call her Princess. He didn’t seem like someone who would spread rumors or talk—he had parents who were Senators. He probably knew how powerful words were. Still, she had to know for sure.

“You won’t tell anyone?”

“What?”

“You won’t tell anyone what I’m going to tell you. It’d be our secret.”

“S-secret?”

“Yeah. It’s a big deal, so I’ll be very hurt if you tell anyone.”

“And you’ll hurt _me_ if I tell anyone.”

“Well, yeah.”

Leia’s blunt answer made Aoil’s breath catch. She could feel his fear slowly smooth out in resolution.

“I won’t tell anyone no matter how much they try to make me tell them.”

Leia nodded. “So, there’s this thing called the Force,” Leia said. “It’s everywhere and in everything. Me, you, a droid, a fruit—everything is connected by the Force. There are some people who can use the Force. I can.”

“How?”

“I dunno,” Leia said as she waved open a doorway, although even that small use of the Force was painful. “I just…can. It’s a part of me. It’s like breathing. I feel the Force all the time and can use it all the time. I’m just better at using it when I’m feeling something really strong.”

“Like yesterday.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Leia said.

The air in the large room was a little musty and cold, the tang of blaster fire and blood still somehow lingering. Dust had settled on some of the tables and chairs, and all the machines were powered off.

“This place still gets power,” Leia said as Aoil stepped in behind her. Leia closed the door once he had entered and was running his fingers delicately along edges of the shelves. “So if you want to look up anything, you can.”

“You don’t have to use the Force?”

“Don’t think so,” Leia said. She gave a Very Disapproving librarian a wave. “C’mon, we’re going to go down a little deeper.”

“Why?”

“Because what’s in here is probably what everyone knows. Deeper down is the hidden knowledge. Y’know, the _interesting_ stuff.”

“Interesting,” Aoil grumbled as he trailed behind Leia.

The Force wrapped around her, gentler than the prior day as they descended through the Archives. It still hurt as it sunk into her, but she felt a little less raw. In the shadow of collected Jedi knowledge, it was cool, grounding, and soft.

“My dads don’t want me to be friends with you anymore.”

Leia turned to face Aoil, almost tripping over a stair. “What?”

“They said that what you did meant that you really _are_ Darth Vader’s daughter,” he said, his voice muted in the heavy silence. “They said that it’s not safe for me to be your friend anymore.”

“The safest thing to be is my friend!” Leia protested. “I will _always_ protect you.”

“I know, I know,” Aoil said. “It’s just…”

“What?”

Aoil was silent as they decended, and as they stepped onto the bottom stair, he said: “They’re scared. That one day you might use the power you have against _me_ , and I can kinda understand. But…” he swallowed. “You were _wonderful_.”

“Well, duh. Thanks.”

“No, no,” Aoil said and grabbed her hand before she could raise it to open the final door. “I’m not…I _felt_ your power, Princess. The way you just…” he ran his free hand through his hair. “You were beautiful and terrifying and I want to spend all my time near that. Near you. I’ll—I’ll find some way to be helpful. Just let me stay by your side.”

Leia blinked at his intensity, but he was sincere. She held his eyes and as she watched his face slowly shifted into one of an older version of himself, his pale white-blue eyes having darkened to a beautiful amber. There was power in his gaze, an unshakeable faith and strength. He was hers now and he always would be. Maybe not a Sith, not like her—she wouldn’t allow it—but strong in the Force anyway.

“Of course I’ll let you be my minion,” Leia told him brightly as the image faded.

Aoil’s face pulled into a wry grin. “Thanks, Princess. So, what is this place? There’s no keypad and no door.”

“It’s the secret-special Jedi library,” Leai told him and put her hand on the smooth metal. “Not just anyone can get in. You have to use the Force.”

Leia let out a long, slow breath and nudged the door open with the Force, the door sliding silently to the side.

The domed room they stepped in to seemed somehow more cavernous than the one they had exited as the lights slowly turned on. The room felt like her dad, like when she sat next to him as they worked on homework together. It was dark and encompassing and it swallowed her soul.

“This place seems dangerous,” Aoil said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“It’s like me,” Leia said and walked into a stack. She ran her fingers along the records, the darkness seeping into the raw parts of her insides and cooling the places where she still hurt so the leftover fire solidified into obsidian.

“Can I look around?”

Leia looked over to Aoil, who stood near a shelf, his hand hesitantly resting on a console.

“Sure,” Leia said. “Take out what calls to you. I can always bring it back. I won’t keep you from learning things that the Jedi didn’t want anyone else to know.”

It felt like the right thing to say.

Aoil turned on the console and began to type away, probably browsing what was available.

“We have fifteen more minutes before we have to starting heading back if we don’t want to get caught.”

“Right. You gonna be okay?”

“Yup. I disarmed all the traps upstairs, but there may be a few here I haven’t caught yet.”

“ _Traps_?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let anything hurt you.”

Leia heard Aoil heave a heavy sigh before his footsteps retreated, leaving her alone in the depths of the Archives. She knew where he was, though. He was in no danger.

Leia’s fingers caught on four records before she felt like she had enough. She hid them all in her “lunch” bag, then meandered up to the public Archives to find Aoil after securing the non-public section behind her.

She found him sitting at a terminal, his eyes flicking back and forth as he read whatever he had picked out.

“Whatcha find?” Leia asked.

“I’ve…it’s an anatomy text,” he said as he turned off the terminal and retrieved the record. “There’s some species listed that I’ve never even _heard_ of.”

“Well, take it,” Leia said. “Anything else?”

“No,” Aoil said as he shoved the record in a pocket after he stood. “Can we come back here again?”

“Of course we are! Just let me finish my records first.”

“Okay.”

Leia took his hand and lead him back out of the library, closing and locking the library door behind them. They had to move a little faster to get to lunch before it ended. However, a lunch aide was waiting for them as they exited the dormitory wing, a feeling of intense fear and anger rolling off them.

“We’re fine,” Leia told the aide in as soothing a voice as she could muster.

“Where were you?” the aide demanded, hir fur bristling from beneath the minimal clothing that Coruscant modesty required.

“I didn’t feel comfortable talking to the person this morning,” Leia continued in the soft, cajoling tone. “And Aoil is my best friend. He let me talk to him.”

“You should share your concerns with someone trained to handle them,” the aide said, although hir fur was slowly settling.

“Neither of us are hurt, so there’s no problem. We spent the entire time together, talking. There’s no need to worry.”

“No need to worry,” the aide repeated, hir voice muddled slightly. “Fine. Just don’t go off again.”

“Sure,” Leia chirped and dragged Aoil beside her. “Why don’t you take us back to the cafeteria?”

“That’ll make sure you don’t run off again,” the aide murmured before pushing them in front of hir, preventing them from heading back.

“That’s another thing you can do, isn’t it?” Aoil asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“Huh?”

“You can make people do what you want.”

Leia looked at him, feeling a little winded from the small touch of the Force she had used. “I…a little? Most of the time, no. I’m not strong enough. I’m mostly good at calming people down, maybe making them a little confused. I can’t make them _do_ anything, although Daddy says that it is a thing that he’ll teach me to once I’m older.”

“Do you think you could teach me how to use the Force?”

Leia blinked and looked at Aoil, who seemed more interested in the floor than her.

“Dunno,” she answered. “I’m still learning. And you don’t feel like Dad or that boy I saw or like the ghosts.”

Aoil’s shoulders fell slightly. “Then when you really learn how to make people _do_ the things you want, could you practice on me so that I can learn how to resist it? So that no one will be able to make me do something I don’t want to do?”

“Did I…do that yesterday?”

Aoil’s face flushed. “I mean, I dunno, but when you told me to take care of the others I _couldn’t_ do anything else. I wanted to be with you, to help you, but I just…”

Leia bit her lip, squirmed, then said: “I’m sorry.”

“You helped keep Dipika alive, didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t let her die.”

“I know.”

“I’ll help you.”

“What?”

“I’ll help you so you won’t ever do something you don’t want to do. I’ll help you be strong.”

“Thanks,” Aoil said, his voice barely audible over the clack of their shoes on the stone of the hallway.

They made it to the lunchroom just as it ended and disgorged the rest of their classmates into the hallway

“Just know that that place is our secret for now,” Leia whispered to Aoil, taking one of his hands in hers and giving it a gentle squeeze. “No one else can know until we’re done with it.”

Aoil nodded solemnly.

Leia spent the second half of the day fidgeting, Dipika’s condition constantly on her mind. She was pretty sure that her rival was okay, but she needed to see her, just to be sure.

She called her home the minute that school let out. Kay answered.

“I think you might have to delay going to the hospital,” he said, looking a little sweaty.

“Why?”

“Because Imperial guards are probably waiting for you to take you to see the Emperor.”

“I don’t care.”

“Lady Skywalker—”

“I’m going to see Dipika and the Emperor’s just gonna hafta wait.”

“But he’s the _Emperor_.”

“I. Don’t. Care. Dipika is more important.”

Kay stared at her before letting out a half-panicked laugh. “You are definitely Lord Vader’s daughter.”

Leia gave him a cheerful smile. “Don’t worry! I’ll make sure that they don’t hurt Dee.”

“It’s you I’m worried about.”

“You’ve been cleaning?” Leia asked, deliberately changing the subject.

Kay nodded. “I mean, sure, both you and Lord Vader are busy, but would it kill you to vacuum every now and then?”

Leia smiled. “But you do it whenever you visit!”

“That shouldn’t keep you from doing it yourself,” Kay grumbled before the transmission cut off.

Dee was indeed waiting outside, along with two red-robed Imperial guards.

Leia ignored them entirely and went straight to Dee.

“Little Lady—” he started.

“I want to go to the hospital where Dipika is recovering,” she told him in as haughty a voice as she could manage.

“The Emperor wishes to see you,” one of the Imperial guards said, although they were smart enough to not try to touch Leia.

“The Emperor isn’t going anywhere,” Leia told them. “My friend was hurt and I’m going to check in on her.”

“The Emperor insists.”

“He’s probably still at a session of the Senate. They don’t get out for another two hours. I’m going to see my friend.”

“The Emperor will not be kept waiting,” the Imperial guard said before Dee could pull away and reached out to Leia, pulling her back and away from the ship.

Leia squirmed out of the guard’s grip and her stunsaber was in her hand. She ignited it and hit the guard’s leg. From how he had to shift his weight onto his other leg, Leia knew that the paralyzing energy had rendered his leg numb probably from the hip down. However, her second swing was blocked by a blood red lightsaber blade.

Leia startled only briefly before she was forced to defend as the Guard pushed her away. She and her father had gone over the different lightsaber combat types and after watching a few examples of each type that were captured on video, they had settled on Ataru. Her father had _severely_ disapproved, but Leia’s slight build and nimbleness allowed her to do the acrobatics required.

The guard was most certainly not expecting her to retaliate like she did. A small application of the Force gave her the height and speed that she didn’t have naturally and augmented her speed. While the use of the Force burned, the pain faded as her irritation with the guards bloomed into smoldering anger. She sidestepped broad sweeps from the double-bladed lightsabers the guards used, twirling inside their longer reach before tumbling around them and out of danger, making them run the risk of hurting themselves while trying to subdue her.

It was only once she had one of the guards unconscious that the other pulled back, deactivating hir lightsaber. Leia still stood in a guard stance, bristling.

“How _dare_ you,” Leia snarled, moving out of guard and into an offensive stance. “Go away before I squish you both.”

The second guard helped the first onto his feet, Leia watching them both as they moved.

The second bowed slightly to her, which Leia didn’t even both to acknowledge except to growl in warning. She waited until it was obvious that they weren’t going to attack her that she deactivated her stunsaber.

Leia hear Dee laughing softly, but there was more panic in the sound than mirth.

She ignored his distress and took a seat in the car.

“I am going to see my friend,” Leia said. “I’ll see the Emperor when Daddy comes home, since Daddy has to report to him after each mission anyway. Let’s go.”

Dee promptly pulled away, his laughter dying to a pained silence.

“We’re gonna be in such shit,” Dee said, grimacing.

“Don’t worry, Dad and I’ll protect you,” Leia said and patted his arm. “You _do_ know where Dipika is, right?”

“Yeah, I found out where your friend is,” Dee said as he maneuvered in traffic.

“So, she’s okay?”

“She’s _alive_ ,” Dee said. “I’m not sure how okay she is, since the people at the hospital couldn’t tell me because of patient confidentiality.”

“Thanks for finding out for me.”

Dee looked over to her, surprise coming off of him because of her thanks. “You’re welcome, little Lady. I just wish you wouldn’t court trouble by fighting the damned Imperial Guard.”

“But then your life would be boring, and we can’t have that, right?”

Dee groaned in distress.

Once they arrived, Leia followed the Force to where Dipika was recovering, Dee about three yards behind her, since he had to grab two visitor’s passes before proceeding deeper into the hospital. Leia received a few looks that she didn’t bother to interpret as she wound her way through the building, her steps sure. Dee fell into step next to her eventually, and the irritated looks she was getting fell off. Apparently having Dee as a bodyguard or something made people less suspicious of her.

Dipika and her family were in a special chamber that recreated the environment of their home so she would be able to recover more quickly. Such meant that Leia couldn’t go in, but that didn’t entirely matter. She pressed her hand and forehead against the door and _concentrated_.

Dee was talking to someone in the background, but Leia pushed his voice and emotions of out her find and focused solely on Dipika in the other room. Dipika had a little touch of the Force in her, which made it easier for Leia to narrow her focus to Dipika’s physical well being.

She felt Dipika jump slightly, could feel her hearts pump a little faster. Cautiously, Leia felt Dipika’s attention sharpen almost painfully in an attempt to connect to Leia. To find out who was with her.

 _I don’t think she can use the Force, but she can feel it,_ Leia thought and sent reassurance, strength, and confidence in Dipika’s direction. She wasn’t sure how much Dipika felt from her, but Leia could definitely feel her curiosity. Dipika’s pulse had slowed down. Leia felt less pain coming from her.

Leia heard a hiss that said someone had entered the chamber that separated Coruscant from Dipika’s home environment and took a few large steps back, bumping into Dee, who steadied both of them.

“Is something wrong?”

“I’m gonna meet Dipika’s family now.”

“Oh. You’re okay with that?”

Leia shrugged. “Should I _not_ be okay with it?”

She had never met the adult versions of Dipika before. She wanted to come off as confident as possible, but she was nonetheless a little nervous.

Eventually, the door opened, revealing one of Dipika’s parents. They, too, were covered head to toe in supple, skin tight, full-body armor of glittering blues and greens, while their protective headgear was a pale purple with red almost tattoo-like accents sweeping across the elaborate machinery. The machine covered their entire face and head, blending seamlessly into the neck of their armor. The gear hid any natural hair, although elaborately braided blood-red false hair cascaded seamlessly over the helm to their mid-back. The coloration on the gear and hair meant that Leia was looking at Dipika’s mother.

“You are Leia Skywalker,” Dipika’s mother said.

“Yup. I mean, yes. I am,” Leia said.

“Be polite,” Dee scolded softly.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Leia said to Dipika’s mother, giving her the traditional greeting for Dipika’s culture.

Dipika’s mother returned the gesture and said, “I am Kakar. Dipika says that you are responsible for her being alive.”

“She’s okay?” Leia asked, her body slumping slightly in relief.

“It will take her another day or so to heal,” Kakar replied. “But she is expected to make a full recovery.”

Leia cheered and hugged Dee, since she was pretty sure that Kakar would not appreciate being hugged.

“I do wonder, though, why you would save her? Dipika says you don’t really like her.”

Leia blinked. “Oh, well, you see, she’s my _rival_ ,” Leia said, assuming that would explain everything.

“Rival,” Kakar repeated slowly. “Most rivals are competitors, adversaries. They would not necessarily save the other.”

“Well, Dipika is smart and strong,” Leia said. “As smart and as strong as I am. So I can’t let her _win_ , but I can’t let her be hurt either, because no one else is smart or strong like we’re smart and strong and then school would really be super boring and that’s no fun.”

“I see,” Kakar said, although Leia wasn’t sure she entirely understood.

“It’s like Lannah and Plutan,” Leia said, trying to find a good way to explain what she felt her relationship with Dipika was. “They’re sisters in our grade. You can ask Dipika about them. They don’t like each other a lot but will protect each other because no one else is allowed to mess with the other except them.”

Kakar seemed to understand, given how her posture changed and her emotions evened out in the Force. “That is how you regard my daughter? As a sister?”

“I guess? I dunno. I don’t have a sister. Dipika’s just important to me. So that’s why I protected her. I’m glad she’s gonna be okay.”

“She owes you a life-debt, you know. We all do. Dipika is our only child, and it’s difficult for our people to have children. She is our greatest treasure and joy.”

“Okay,” Leia said. “I don’t care about a debt or anything. I just want her to keep being strong and smart.”

“There has to be something we can do for you or give to you.”

Leia paused. Dipika was important to her and wore a mask to survive. Her dad was _super_ important to her and wore a mask to survive, too. She didn’t need a mask to survive, but she wanted one to wear, even if it didn’t really do anything.

“I want the kind of mask you wear,” Leia said. “Not, like, with it actually doing the things you need to survive or anything, though. I just want one that looks like it that I can wear and I want Dipika to decorate it or paint it or whatever. Because yours is very pretty and I see her doodling what patterns she wants on hers when she gets bigger and hers is going to be very pretty, too.”

The emotions Leia was getting from Karak were halfway between amused and offended.

“Our masks are very important not only to our existence, but also say many things about us as individuals. What family we belong to, what our station in life is, our profession, sex, and age. An outsider has never been given one of our masks,” Karak said, her voice neutral and solemn.

Leia shrugged. “Okay, whatever. I just want Dipika to get better. She better not miss out on too many classes because I won’t forgive her if Solange starts beating her in academics and stuff. Only _I_ am allowed to beat her. Say hi to her for me.”

Leia gave Karak a just-barely-polite parting and walked away, Dee trailing behind her by a step.

“Little Lady, you _do_ know who that was, right?” Dee said, his voice strained, anxiety and incredulity rolling off him.

“Dipika’s mom,” Leia answered simply.

“Who happens to be the _ruler_ of her people.”

“Oh. Cool.”

Dee’s frustration peaked before it settled into resignation. “Little Lady, you really can’t go around demanding things of leaders of entire _peoples_.”

“Why not?” Leia asked as they strolled through the sterile halls of the hospital. “I’m a Sith.”

“That doesn’t me—”

“Are you going to teach me how to use a blaster, or is Kay?”

“I am,” Dee grumbled. “But first Kay is going to teach you about all the kinds of blasters. Since you’re still a young girl, you won’t be able to hold one comfortably yet. But Kay will make sure that you know all you need to know about the different kinds and what they can do. When you’re old enough, I’ll teach you how to shoot.”

“You’re the best,” Leia said and gave his arm a hug.

Dee merely sighed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Star Wars still isn't mine.

The next day, Leia watched Dipika enter the classroom and take her seat across the room. She walked carefully, but there was no weakness in her movements. She burned brightly in the Force, only the smallest hint of pain dulling her glow.

Satisfied, Leia turned her attention to her class.

She was a little surprised when Dipika approached her at lunch and sat down deliberately across from her.

“You’re better?” Leia asked around a mouthful of the sandwich Kay had made for her.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

After a comfortably awkward silence, Dipika continued: “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“My mother said that you want a mask like ours.”

“Yeah.”

Dipika seemed to struggle with herself before she asked: “ _Why_?”

“Well, my Dad wears a mask and he’s strong, and you wear a mask and you’re pretty strong, too, and you both look really cool and scary and stuff and I want that, too. But she said no, so…” Leia shrugged. “It’s okay. I understand that they’re important and stuff to your people and I’m not a Solean.”

Dipika nodded. “Mom said you think I’m strong. I think you’re strong, too.”

“So we’re still gonna be rivals, right?”

“Yes.” Dipika hesitated, then said: “Can we be rival-friends?”

“I thought we were,” Leia said, puzzled. She had thought that Dipika knew that they were rivals-but-sorta-friends.

“I…suppose?” Dipika said.

Leia reached across the table and took Dipika’s hands in her own. “And we’ll keep on being rival-friends always! Together we’ll be the best and strongest and smartest people ever!”

Dipika’s head was tilted slightly, as if she was looking at their hands. Leia broke out into a grin when Dipika turned her hands so that she was lightly grasping Leia’s in return.

“Always,” Dipika said emphatically.

For the briefest moment, the hands that grasped hers were larger, stronger, the armor covering them a pale grey, gold patterns swirling around the wrists and onto the back of her hand. Leia blinked and Dipika’s armor was back to its normal teal-and-cerulean without markings.

“Still gonna do better than you at the Core languages,” Leia said after giving Dipika’s hands a squeeze and letting them go.

Dipika shook her head, scoffing. “You wish. You’ll be _lucky_ if you come in second to me.”

“You haven’t been doing well on your vocabulary exams.”

“And your sentence structure is like a three-year-old’s.”

They consumed their lunches in between insults, but when lunch was over, Leia grabbed Dipika’s hand in hers, and happily walked side-by-side to their next class. It took about three-quarters of the way there, but Dipika eventually relaxed and let her fingers intertwine with Leia’s.

“We’ll be the strongest together,” Leia told Dipika, her words ringing with certainty as they entered the dreaded Protocol class. However, when Leia tried to let go, Dipika held on tightly.

“I’ll teach you how to fight,” Dipika blurted. “Like how my people fight. Because you’re good with that sword-thing of yours, but if you ever get disarmed, I want you to be able to fight hand-to-hand as well.”

Leia gave her a bright smile. “And I’ll teach you how to use a lightsaber! It’ll be _awesome_. And Dee said he’ll teach me how to use a blaster, so maybe I can get him to teach you, too.”

Dipika seemed a little off-put by Leia’s enthusiasm, particularly when Leia hugged her, but Leia wasn’t getting anger from her. She let Dipika go and flounced over to her seat. Learning how to fight like Dipika would just make her a stronger Sith, and that was never a bad thing.

Leia just _knew_ when her father had returned to Coruscant, and was delighted to find out that _he_ was the one picking her up from school that day. She flung herself into his arms and gave him a tight hug while flooding him with love through the Force.

“So apparently you refused to see the Emperor until I returned,” he said as Leia settled herself into the passenger seat.

“The guards were being rude,” Leia said primly. “I needed to go see my friend who had been hurt, but they were all, “The Emperor has to see you,” when I _knew_ that the Senate would still be in session and he’d be occupied so I’d just be waiting around and that was dumb so I said no. And then they tried to make me go, but I didn’t want to, so I stopped them and then Dee drove me to the hospital.”

Once Leia had finished speaking, her dad started to laugh. It was a good-laugh, however, which made Leia beam at him.

It was only when his respirator started beeping and he began to wheeze that he stopped laughing.

“Oh, Leia, I wish I had been there to see it,” he said. “You defeating two large, red-robed Imperial Guards must have been…”

“I’m the daughter of Lord Vader,” Leia said haughtily. “Of _course_ I’m gonna win when fighting with two stupid guards.”

Her dad sent her a tidal wave of love, and Leia happily basked in it the rest of the way to their home.

“Get changed into your Sith robes,” her dad said once she had put her school things down.

“Really?” Leia asked, excitement running through her.

“We’re going to see the Emperor,” he said. “I want you to look like the Sith you are.”

“Can I bring my stunsaber?”

“Of course.”

“It won’t be taken away from me or anything?”

“If anyone tried, I’m fairly sure they would fail,” Vader said dryly. “It is also a symbol of your status as a Sith. The Emperor will probably be expecting you to wear it.”

“Okdokie! I’ll get changed real fast.”

“Take your time,” her dad called after her as she went to her room.

Leia took out her Sith robes and laid them out on her bed. She ran her fingers along the fabric, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She chucked her school uniform into her laundry basket and pulled on her Sith robes—pants, shirt, tunic, gloves, and belt. She tucked her pants into boots of reinforced leather, and hooked her stunsaber onto the special loop on her belt. She pinned her braids up so they formed loose loops on the back of her head; that way they wouldn’t get in the way if she had to fight. Lastly, she pulled on the overcoat. She ran her hands down the front of her overcoat, then dashed over to the mirror.

She very rarely got to wear her official Sith robes, and was always delighted when she could. The robes had been too big when they had been initially commissioned, but she had grown into them, and they were supposed to keep on fitting her until she was about 13. She examined herself in the robes and couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of her throat. She looked _cool_ and _strong_ and she felt that way, too. She almost skipped out of her room and gave a little twirl before stopping in front of her dad.

He patted her head and sent her love. “You look wonderful. Like a true Sith.”

“I know,” Leia chirped and took her dad’s hand in hers. He was letting off low-grade anxiety, sadness, and anger, so she tried to wash the away with her love. “Let’s go deal with the stupid Emperor.”

Vader chuckled as they left their home, his emotions evening out, like they always did when he was with her.

The drive to the Imperial residence was a short one. It was a building that was clearly meant to be intimidating, and had once housed many of the members of the Galactic Senate. However, most had their own residences, since living in the same building as the Emperor was seen as both improper and dangerous. So, now the Emperor had more or less the run of the place. Leia had overheard some teachers saying that the Emperor had originally planned on having the old Jedi temple as his residence; however, he had eventually been persuaded to let the school remain a school, just repurposed for the Empire.

“It must be lonely, living by himself,” Leia observed as her dad parked their ship near the Imperial residence.

“I don’t think he minds the solitude,” her dad said, his voice carefully neutral. “Leia Padme Amidala Skywalker.”

“Yes?”

“I do not expect you to be on your best behavior. I just want you to remember that the Emperor will hear everything you say and more. The less you say, the less he has to use against you. Do you understand?”

Leia looked at her dad’s mask, trying to read his voice and emotions through the Force. When what she got was seriousness and underlying anxiety and protectiveness, she nodded.

“I’ll be careful around him, promise,” she said.

“Good,” Vader said and unlocked the ship doors. Leia stepped out and joined him, taking his hand as they walked to the stairs that would lead them to the lift to the top floor. Her stunsaber thumped comfortingly against her thigh as they walked. Her hand was enclosed by her dad’s, his strength and confidence comforting.

“Remember: be careful,” her dad told her softly as they reached the top stair.

Leia squeezed his hand and sent him love and confidence through the Force. He sent her fierce love and pride in return, and Leia grinned up at him.

The hallway to the lift that would take them to the Emperor’s suite wound in a broad arc around the base of the building. Stormtroopers patrolled the hallways, and Imperial guards stood at attention at each intersection. Leia kept her head high and ignored their presence, for the most part. She wondered if she’d run into the guard who she had hurt. She sort of wanted to. Just so she could laugh at him.

The lift was made of glass, so that when they ascended, they had a perfect view of the Coruscant landscape through the clear panes. The planet glittered with light and darkness, life and death, the heart of the Empire. It vibrated in the Force with the lives of billions of inhabitants, which always left Leia feeling small; then, she remembered that she had a kind of strength almost none of them could even begin to fathom, and the feeling passed.

The lift came to a gentle stop at the top floor, and the doors opened for them. The carpet was plush, colored deep maroon, and their footsteps were nearly inaudible. The only real sound in the area was her dad’s breathing. It was an unnatural, predatory silence that surrounded them. Leia wanted to break something, if just to upset whatever hid in wait.

Imperial guards stood on either side of the door that would lead to the reception room, and Leia once again ignored them. Her dad let go of her hand, so she hooked her fingers in the loops of her belt. The doors opened for them and Vader entered first, Leia trailing a step or three behind.

The room was open, dominated by a view of the city-planet. There was nothing in the way of seating except for a single chair that was already occupied. There were a few pedestals that were displaying artifacts that had almost non-existent ghosts lingering near them, perhaps items taken from the conquered. There was one plant and a single terminal that was near the occupied seat. Everything was luxurious, but the space felt close because of the dark color palette.

There was no place to hide.

“Lord Vader,” a voice croaked. “I am pleased that your latest excursion was successful…and that you have brought your daughter with you.”

Leia turned her attention away from the clearly venomous and carnivorous plant to the person occupying the one chair in the room.

The first emotion Leia felt upon seeing the Emperor was disgust. Leia knew that he was _old_ and strong, ruthless and smart. But he was also a withering shadow, ruling primarily through mind control and careful manipulation of information throughout the galaxy. As far as she knew, he rarely left Coruscant anymore, letting his commanders be his eyes and ears and mouth and hands. He was the brain behind the Imperial machine, the spider at the center of the web.

He smelled of decay, and his presence in the Force was blood-soaked lightning and creeping sickness. He was clothed in a simple black robe, which was probably all he could tolerate wearing with such a frail-looking body. His face was heavily lined with preternaturally deep wrinkles, his teeth stained and tainted with the malice that oozed out of his every pore. He repulsed her.

_How can he still be running the galaxy?_

Leia’s fingers tightened around the leather loops of her belt. She wanted to squish him _so badly_ , but she knew that he was too strong and crafty for her to squish. At least, for now. She would, eventually.

“Your daughter does not fear me,” the Emperor observed, his scratchy voice grating against Leia’s nerves. He spoke slowly, each word distinct, carefully chosen, and spoken slowly and softly enough to demand attention. It irritated her.

“She fears very little,” her dad said, pride in his voice.

“Yes, yes,” the Emperor agreed. “After all, it wasn’t fear that drove her power…it was anger.” The Emperor focused his watery, pale gaze on her. “You are strong for someone so young.”

“I am my father’s daughter,” Leia responded.

“Perhaps a bit of your mother’s as well,” he said, appearing thoughtful. “You intend to keep on training her, Lord Vader?” he asked, although his eyes never left Leia.

“Yes, my Master,” her father replied, his voice carefully neutral.

“What have you learned, child?” he asked, and there was a subtle Force command in his voice.

Leia brushed it aside. It hadn’t been a particularly _strong_ Force suggestion, which meant that he probably thought she would be easily influenced because she was young. She’d give him an answer, just not the one he was looking for. He hadn’t been terribly _specific…_

She widened her eyes and said, “I’ve learned a lot! I can read and write almost all the Inner Rim languages, and speak the major ones. I’ve also studied some Gungan and Huttese. I’ve been taught about the cultures and protocol of all the Inner Rim societies and know the basics of how the government is run. I’m taking math that is advanced for my age because I want to know how to travel through space without ending up inside a star and stuff. I also know about—”

“That wasn’t my question,” he said, his voice a firm reprimand.

Leia gave him a pleasant, if slightly vacant, smile. “Oh, sorry.”

“You fought well against my guards yesterday,” he said, his watery yellow eyes fixated on her.

Leia pouted. “They were mean. You should’ve told them to be nicer.”

“You apparently knocked one of them unconscious.”

“I mean, really, they didn’t have, like, _any_ manners at all. They didn’t even say _please_ or _thank you_ they just were like, ‘Come with us,’ but I couldn’t because I’m not supposed to go off with people that I don’t know and I needed to check in on my friend at the hospital and someone was waiting to pick me up and it’s not nice to keep people waiting so—”

“Seeing your friend is not more important than an Imperial audience,” the Emperor said.

Leia hesitated, and looked up to her father. He had told her to be careful.

“Why did you disobey my guards?” the Emperor asked, a stronger Force suggestion in his words.

Leia could still brush off the influence, but answered anyway: “Well, I mean, Senate was still in session, and they’ve been debating something big, so the sessions have been going long. You probably got back really late, and you were probably tired. I bet you didn’t feel like dealing with a little girl after being around a bunch of grown-up babies the whole day.” She finished her statement with what she hoped was a disarming smile.

The Emperor settled back a little further into his chair. “You are well informed regarding political matters for a young girl.”

“I have friends.”

“Indeed,” the Emperor said, drawing out the word. “You left behind quite the mess for the sanitation department to clean up at the museum.”

Leia smiled, but kept her mouth shut.

That earned her a languid, disturbing smile from the Emperor. His dry chuckle rattled through the room before he said: “You may wait outside for your father. My guards will leave you alone if you leave them alone.”

Leia bowed and turned sharply on her heel, crossing the room, her footsteps barely making any sound on the thick carpet.

She idly wondered if it was so plush because it absorbed blood better that way.

The doors opened for her, and stepped outside. She could feel the guards looking at her suspiciously as she made her way over to a cushioned bench. She plopped herself down on it, took a deep breath, and counted herself down into a meditative state.

She trusted the Emperor as far as she could throw him using just her arms. She knew that when she grew older that she would either be the one to kill him or would orchestrate his death. It was just a matter of _when_.

She let herself float on the Force, hoping for even a snippet of a vision of any sort to pass the time since she wasn’t allowed to hurt the guards.

“I hate the sand,” she heard Aoil whine, although his voice was older and more resonant. “Why are we here again?”

“Because you were interested in the native species of this world and I’ve been sent here as a diplomatic envoy,” Leia heard herself drawl, her voice older as well. “The Hutts have a lot of power in the Outer Rim. They may be…useful.”

The conversation was interrupted by her dad saying: “Come, Leia.”

Leia opened her eyes and hopped off the bench, walking beside her dad as they left the Emperor’s throne room behind. Once they had left the hallway that led directly to the throne room, Leia took her dad’s hand in hers and squeezed it tightly.

“I love you, Daddy,” she told him.

Vader lightly squeezed her hand back, but said nothing, so Leia fell silent as well for the rest of their journey.

Once they had reached their ship, her dad said: “You did well, Leia.”

Leia beamed at him. “I tried to do like Daddy said kept quiet.”

Vader let his hand fall gently on her head. “He said that you were…disgusted by him.”

Leia startled, then scowled. “Well, he _is_ gross,” she grumbled. “How did he know? Can he read minds?”

“You are so used to projecting your emotions that it was easy to read your feelings,” her dad said. “While that is usually not a bad thing, perhaps it would be good to teach you a little emotional control and how to better guard your mind. It may not be as fun as squishing droids, but it’s important.”

“If Daddy says something is important, then I’ll do my best to master it,” Leia said firmly.

Her dad sighed, and it was equal parts exasperation and love.

“Did he hurt you?” Leia asked him, feeling like something was _off_.

“There’s no need for you to worry about me,” her dad told her and ran one of his gloved hands over her head. “You think I’m strong, right?”

“The strongest!”

“Then trust that I can take care of myself.”

“Okay,” she said and sent him love and trust through the Force. However, even that didn’t fully break his mood.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?” Leia asked as they wove through traffic. She was beginning to feel anxious and angry. If the Emperor had done something to her Dad, she’d…well, she wasn’t sure what she’d do, just that she’d do _something_ to make the Emperor feel just as bad.

“I’m afraid he might try to kill you before you kill him,” her dad replied. “You have to be very careful, Leia. You’re all I have left and I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t,” Leia said firmly. She received a surge of love and protectiveness from her dad.

“I believe you,” he responded, sounding certain. “But I’m going to train you harder than before.”

“That’s okay,” Leia said. “Dipika said she’d teach me how to fight like a Solean, and they’re good warriors. I said I’d teach her how to fight with a lightsaber—is that okay?”

After a thoughtful pause, her dad said: “It will be good for you to have a sparring partner.”

“I also picked up some records from the Jedi archives that have Sith techniques and stuff in them. I’m going to learn all of that and all of what you teach me and all of what the Jedi have and then I’m going to squish him like the bug he is.”

Vader ran a gloved hand over her hair, love communicating to her through the Force and his touch. “You’re so smart. I will teach you everything I know.”

Leia hesitated. “Is it okay if I help Aoil to not be able to be manipulated by the Force?”

“Aoil?” her dad repeated.

“My friend from school. He’s come over once or twice.”

“Ah, the Senators’ son. Teaching him to resist Force suggestion will help you, as well, since it will probably teach you how to override all but the strongest of minds.”

“So I can do it?”

“Yes.”

Leia grinned and gave her dad’s arm a hug. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, Leia.”

“Kay taught me about all the different kinds of blasters.”

“Oh did he now?” her dad asked, accepting the change in topics gracefully. “What did you learn?”

Leia happily chattered about the different things she had learned about blasters, including their range to their lethality, from an increasingly uneasy Kay.

“I think I worried him because I learned everything so quickly,” Leia said.

“People always underestimate how clever you are,” her dad said.

“Well, Sith are smart and I’m a Sith so I have to be smart,” Leia said matter-of-factly.

“Very true,” Vader agreed. “Why don’t you tell me what has been going on at your school?”

Leia was telling her dad about her Protocol class when they arrived to their empty home. Dee and Kay had probably vacated as soon as her dad arrived.

“Can I stay in my Sith robes?” Leia asked her dad when they got inside.

Her dad nodded. “You don’t wear them often. As long as you take them off before dinner.”

Leia cheered and hugged her dad.

“Now that I’m home, why don’t you tell me about what happened at the museum? You didn’t say anything about it to the Emperor and he spoke little about what he felt you do,” her dad prompted.

Leia tilted her head thoughtfully as she hung up the outer-robe in a closet. “I knew who the bad people were when I saw them. But the adults…they couldn’t tell.” Leia looked over to her dad. “Why would others expect them to keep us safe if they couldn’t tell who the bad people were?”

“Because sometimes the bad people look like good people,” her dad said. “And sometimes they pretend well enough that others won’t recognize that they’re bad until it’s too late.”

“But _I_ could recognize them.”

“You’re also a Sith. You see things more clearly than most.”

“The museum was interesting. Did you know a Jedi named Mace Windu?”

“Yes,” her dad spat. He clearly hadn’t liked the man.

“They had his lightsaber on display,” she said. “I saw his ghost. I didn’t have time to talk to him, though.”

“It’s probably better that way,” her dad muttered. “He was a dick.”

“They also had stuff on you!” she said. “The Hero Without Fear. Daddy, you’ve always been so awesome!”

Her dad sent her love, but there was a little sadness in it.

“There was stuff on the Clone Wars and the Old Republic and there were a lot of ghosts, although most were really faint. I knew they were there but I couldn’t do anything. There were a few holo-dramas about what had happened, and we were watching one of the end of the Clone Wars and destruction of the Jedi Order when the bad people started firing.”

Leia paused and her dad patted the seat next to him on the couch. Leia wandered over and sat down, wrapping her arms around her dad’s torso, her head coming to rest beside his respirator.

“The adults and security droids fought back a little, but the bad people were very good shooters. Only a few of the bad people died while _all_ the adults who were supposed to be guarding us died.” Leia squeezed her dad a little. “I felt them die. For some of them, it was like a light switch. One moment they were on, the second they were off. Others took longer, like oil leaking out of a squished droid. Some left behind ghosts, but those went away fast. Then, it was just us.”

“Did any adult you care about die?”

Leia scoffed. “You’re the only adult I care about, and none of Dipika’s parents or Aoil’s parents were there, so they’re doing basically okay and that’s what matters.”

Her dad smoothed her hair and Leia pulled back before saying, “Could you unbraid my hair?”

“Of course.”

Leia turned her back to him and her dad unpinned her braids so they fell down her back. “Then it was just me and Dipika and another girl standing against the bad people. They had us all cornered, but we weren’t just going to let them kill us. They sounded like they wanted money in exchange for us, anyway. But then they got too close and Dipika and the other girl attacked them.”

Leia felt her dad slowly unpleating one of her braids, but even his touch wasn’t entirely comforting. “Dipika managed to get one of the bad people’s blasters away, but then they ripped off her mask. Dipika’s people can’t survive in places like here. Their skin burns and the air is poison.”

Leia’s fist thumped hard into her thigh as tears gathered in her eyes. “I could feel Dipika dying, and I wasn’t going to let her die. The others were afraid, so afraid, but I wasn’t. I was _angry_. They hurt Dipika, they hurt the other girl, and they were going to hurt us unless we did something! So I did.”

Leia clenched and unclenched her hands as she felt tears slowly making their way down her cheeks. “I squished the one that hurt Dipika, and it felt good to make _them_ hurt like Dipika was hurting. I squished the one that hurt the other girl, too, because she is a classmate and she had tried to fight back and so deserved my protection. But then they started firing their blasters at us. I guess they figured that our being dead was better than letting me squish them one by one.”

Leia felt her dad slowly starting to brush her hair, the gentle pull of the brush’s bristles as comforting as her dad wrapping her in his love, which alleviated some of the pain that came from realizing that one of her friends had almost _died_.

“I used the Force to absorb the blaster bolts and then pushed all the energy back out at them and they _burned_. One survived, though, and said that he couldn’t let someone like me be on the Empire’s side, so I squished him. By then the other bad people had run away.” She paused, hiccupping slightly from her tears. “But Dipika was still dying. One of my classmates had put the mask back on, but they didn’t know how to do it right so I did it right and then I used the Force and got some of the blood out of her lungs so she didn’t die and then the medics arrived and I nearly squished them because I was surprised and then they took Dipika away but she’s recovered and that’s good.”

“You used the Force to push blood out of her lungs?” her dad said. “That’s impressive.”

“It is?” Leia asked, looking over her shoulder, which made her dad stop brushing her hair.

“That takes a lot of control to do without hurting someone,” her dad said. “I knew a few Jedi healers, and they were some of the most disciplined Jedi in the entire Order. I was never suited to be a healer.”

“Daddy is too cool to be a healer,” Leia said and gave him a watery smile. Her dad got up and knelt beside her so he could wipe away her tears. The soft leather of his gloves against her face made her start crying again.

“What’s wrong?” her dad asked.

“The Force _hurt_ yesterday,” she hiccupped. “After I saved everyone, using the Force, even a little bit, hurt. I was so tired. I wouldn’t’ve been able to protect myself if the bad people came back.”

“You’re only eleven,” her dad said and gathered her in his arms. She curled into his body and clenched his cloak in her hands. “And you did do too much. Using the Force takes energy, and you used more of the Force than you’ve ever used before. Your body was recovering. But now you’ll be stronger, because now your body and mind know just how much you’re capable of using.”

“If I use too much of the Force again, will that mean I can use even _more_?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” her dad said as he sat back down, keeping her close to him. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself trying that out, though, so why don’t we work on teaching you how to do more using what you can use comfortably? That way it’ll take more to overextend yourself.”

“How’ll we do that?”

“I’ll figure something out, although I think the records you got from the Archives might help.”

Leia nodded and sniffled, and her dad gently wiped away her tears again.

“Just know that I will always be proud of you, no matter what,” her dad told her, his voice low and soft. “You’re already so strong, so smart, and I’m so lucky to have you as my daughter. I will _always_ love you.”

“And I’ll always love Daddy,” she said against his shoulder.

They sat in silence for a while, Leia timing her breathing with her dad’s respirator until hers was even and deep again. She felt a little calmer, a little surer. Dipika was going to teach her how to fight like her people. Aoil was okay as well. School had returned to normal.

“I had a dream-vision after the museum,” she told her dad, although she didn’t move from her spot.

“Of what?”

“The boy I saw when you started training me in lightsaber combat. He was older. Said his name was Luke Lars and someone named Ben was training him to be a Jedi. I thought that there weren’t any Jedi left.”

“The galaxy is a large place and I can’t be everywhere,” her dad said. “It’s not a surprise that a few Jedi have slipped through my fingers.”

“Luke said that Ben said that they were the last or some of the last.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No, not really. I could see and hear him and felt a little bit about him through the Force, but he couldn’t see or hear me, but he kinda knew I was there. That’s why I don’t think it was a dream because that’s never happened in dreams. Then again, that’s never happened before ever. What do you think it means?”

Vader stroked her head thoughtfully before saying, “I’m not sure, but I think it means you and he are connected somehow.   I…know someone with the last name of Lars. His name is Owen Lars.”

“How do you know him? When did you meet him?” Leia asked, both worried and intrigued.

“I met him a long time ago. He is my…step-brother. My mother married a man who already had a son, so he became my brother.”

“Did you like having a brother?”

“We met only once,” her dad said, and old hurt was rolling off him. “I haven’t been in touch with him in decades. He may be dead.” He paused. “Wouldn’t that be interesting, though? If he has a son who is strong in the Force. I don’t remember any Jedi named _Ben_ , but I’ll see if I can turn up any information on someone who may have a name close to that.”

“I want to meet him,” Leia said quickly. “But not yet.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll meet him eventually. Right now I want to focus on becoming the best Sith ever.”

Vader nodded. “I will make sure of it.”

Leia gave him a smile. “Thanks, Daddy.”

“Anything for you, Leia.”

“Then can you make dinner?”

Her dad laughed as Leia let go and stood up on her own. Her dad ruffled her hair a little and walked over to the kitchen.

“Kay cleaned everything again,” he observed as Leia trailed after him.

“He always does.”

“Do you want to help me make something? I believe I remember a recipe your mother made a few times…”

Leia gave him a grin. “Sure!”

Leia pushed aside her fear and focused instead on the present, on helping her father cut up vegetables and listening to him tell a story from one of his campaigns from the Clone Wars.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because when I'm not writing my novel, I'm writing fanfiction. Le sigh
> 
> Disclaimer: I have been writing fanfiction for 16 years now. I still own nothing.

Leia pounced on Dipika when they reached the lunch period.

“Come teach me how to do your hand to hand stuff at my home,” she said. “We have a space for it. And that way I can teach you how to use a lightsaber! Well, not _me_ , but my dad. He’s home today, so now’s the best time to start!”

Dipika hesitated.

“I’ll see you after school,” Leia said, taking the lack of a “no” as a “yes.” “I can take us both to my home.”

“You—you can drive?”

“Well, not legally, but I can!”

“If you _really_ want to learn, then we should have my sister teach us,” Dipika said. “She’s the one who has been teaching me and is the best there is.”

“And my dad’s the best at lightsaber combat!” Leia chirped. “It’ll be great. We’ll be so strong!”

Dipika nodded. “We will.”

“So, we’ll start today?”

“I have to talk to my mom and sister first.”

Leia pouted. “Why? You said you’d teach me!”

“I…wasn’t sure if you were serious,” Dipika confessed.

“Of course I was serious,” Leia said.

“It’s just sometimes a little hard to tell.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Well, I am. Then, when can we start? Why don’t I bring you back to my home and you can start learning lightsaber stuff and then tomorrow we can start learning your thing. Sound good?”

“I…sure.”

“We’ll go back to my home together and—”

“I need to tell my mom first. So, tomorrow will probably be better.”

Leia sighed dramatically. “Fine, tomorrow. Dad should still be around, and if he isn’t, I got a couple of new holorecords detailing the different fighting styles so we can try to figure out those together.”

Dipika apparently wasn’t ready for what it meant to be Leia’s _friend_ , but that was okay with Leia. She’d either adapt or just stop being her friend.

However, Dipika mentioning that she would have to consult with her mother about training made Leia think she ought to warn her dad about her plans.

So, when her dad was indeed home when she returned, she blurted:

“You’d be okay with me starting to train me and Dipika with lightsaber tomorrow, right?”

Her dad nodded. “You need a sparring partner and she should be able to meet your skill quickly enough, if she is like any other Solean I’ve met.”

“And it’s okay if we start tomorrow?”

“I’d like you to start as soon as possible.”

Leia nodded. “That’s what I was thinking!”

“Of course it was. You’re a smart girl.”

Leia shot him a grin.

“It’s good that you’ve made another friend you feel comfortable inviting over,” her dad said, sounding surprised more than anything else. “Although why do you want to learn to hand-to-hand combat?”

“Because that way if I don’t have a lightsaber I can still fight and stuff,” Leia told him.

“I doubt there will ever be a time when you will be without a lightsaber _and_ the Force, but it’s good you want to be as strong as possible in as many things as possible.”

“And I was thinking that maybe I could use the Force with my punches and stuff,” Leia said, badly shadow-boxing.

“Perhaps,” her dad said, sounding intrigued.

Leia flashed him a grin.

“So who exactly will I be meeting?”

“Dipika and her mom and her older sister.”

“And what station is her mom? They don’t let just anyone into the school you attend.”

“Well, according to Dee she’s the ruler of the Solean people.”

Her dad fell silent for a moment before chuckling, the sound wry and dark. “I see.”

“What’s funny about that?”

Her dad gently ran his hand over her hair. “Nothing you need to worry about right now. Come, we have to set up the studio for more than one person to train in—you can only use the Force to move everything. Tell me about your day while you do so.”

“Okay!”

The studio was halfway set up when a thought dawned on Leia. “Dad, I call you Dad, but what should my friends and stuff call you?”

“I am Darth Vader to the rest of the galaxy. They can call me Lord Vader or Darth Vader.”

“Ok. Just wanted to check.”

“Your control over the Force is getting better every day,” her dad observed.

Leia sent him love and pride, which he returned.

Cleaning up the studio went a lot easier with a steady undercurrent of his love and support.

\--

“So, my home isn’t big or anything,” Leia told Dipika as she sat in the back of Dipika’s mom’s ship. “But it’s just my dad and me, so we don’t need a big place. Everything is set up for us to practice! Do you want to do hand to hand first or lightsaber?”

“From my understanding of lightsaber combat, it will be the less strenuous between the two martial arts,” Dipika’s mother said from the driver’s seat. “You’ll start training in ours first.”

“Okay!”

Her dad was waiting for them on the platform outside their home, and Leia heard Dipika’s sister, Saretti, swear.

Leia didn’t care, and dragged Dipika out behind her and over to her dad.

“Dad, this is Dipika. Dipika, this is my dad.”

“ _Darth Vader_ is your dad?” Dipika hissed softly.

“Yup,” Leia proclaimed proudly. “Come on, let me show you the studio.”

Leia pulled Dipika behind her, although was confused by the fear coming off her.

“What’s wrong?” Leia asked as she opened the door to the studio with the Force. “You’re my friend and he agreed to teach us both, you don’t have to be afraid of him.”

Dipika’s hand squeezed hers, and Leia was pretty sure she was looking for comfort, so gave it a squeeze back.

“Here we are!” she proclaimed. “It’s not huge or anything, but it’s got everything we need. I think.”

Dipika let go of her hand and began to poke around the room, spending a long moment gazing into the mirror.

But, her reflection wasn’t of the girl standing not too far away. Before her was a Solean woman in her prime, her body all lithe, dangerous lines. She stood straight, tall, and proud, and Leia saw two hilts of what seemed to be modified lightsabers hanging at her waist, although a blaster was strapped to her thigh, probably as a fail-safe. Her armor and mask were clearly of the highest quality; however, instead of the bright jewel tones of her family, she wore a suit made of shades of grey, although the markings were gold and the fake hair was the bright red that marked her as female. Leia had never seen a Solean wearing _grey_ before, so it made her both curious and uneasy. She kept quiet, however, as the image quickly vanished, replaced by the more familiar form of Dipika in the present.

Dipika’s mother and cousin entered the studio, her father a step behind them. Saretti seemed tense, Dipika’s mom annoyed, and her dad amused.

“So, where do we start?” Leia asked, transferring her attention to Saretti.

“The basics,” she said.

It was as hard as Leia thought it would be, because it was a completely different way of using her body. Saretti pushed her until Leia’s lower body gave out. Dipika was obviously ready and able to do more advanced exercises, but stopped once Leia plopped on the ground and stretched out her legs in an attempt to get them to stop cramping.

“Not bad for your first time,” Saretti commented.

Leia didn’t respond because she was breathing too hard and focusing on channeling some of the Force to help her legs recover.

“Are you still going to show me some basic lightsaber combat?” Dipika asked, barely winded.

Leia swallowed to work moisture back into her mouth, then nodded. She called two of the practice sticks to her, one hovering in front of Dipika at the height of her hand, the other resting on the ground beside Leia.

“Yeah,” she panted and stood, using the Force to help steady her. “Dad?”

Her dad walked over to them, his cloak fluttering behind him as he stood behind Leia and handed her the practice sword. “I think we will do alternating martial practice,” her dad said. “But, for now, we will focus on the basics as well.”

The ‘basics’ turned out to be learning how to block using a training remote. Leia’s was obviously harder, as she used as blaster helmet to keep herself from being able to see where the droid was going to fire, but based on the very few yelps of pain she heard, Dipika was either good at dodging or guessing.

“I think that’s enough,” Leia heard Saretti say, her voice cold.

Leia pushed the helmet back to see Dipika shaking slightly. There were barely any marks from where the droid hit, which made Leia proud.

“You okay?” she asked, tossing the helmet and practice stick aside. She plucked the stick out of Dipika’s hand and supported her with the Force.

“Y-yeah,” Dipika said, although Leia was unconvinced.

Leia picked her up off her feet with the Force, and almost immediately Dipika’s body slumped in exhaustion now that she no longer had to focus on standing.

“How do you _do_ it?” she asked Leia as Saretti, Dipika’s mom, and her dad had a quiet argument/discussion.

“Same way you do your fighting thing,” Leia said. “Practice. You dodged mostly, right?”

“I got the hang of it eventually, but not like _you_.”

“I have the Force,” Leia said. “I think Dad was testing you to see if you had any of the Force in you. I think you have a little bit.”

“The bolts never hurt,” she murmured. “I just had to focus so hard that I have a headache and the stick thing gets heavy after a while.”

Leia gave her an encouraging smile, brought her to the living room, and placed her on the couch. “I got hit a lot when I was first learning,” Leia said. “So you being able to avoid as much as you did says that you’re already better than me when I started off.”

Leia got a cautious feeling of gratitude from Dipika. “Thanks,” she said aloud.

“How’d I do?” Leia asked.

“Not bad,” Dipika said. “You’re going to have to work on your lower body strength.”

Leia nodded morosely. “I’ll do it, though!”

“I know you will.”

When the adults emerged from the studio, Leia sensed waves of amusement rolling off of her dad, while the Solean women were much more rigid, anger and anxiety coming from them.

“How about we have our practice at one of the studios at school? It used to be the Jedi Temple and I know a few places that are big enough and stuff,” Leia offered.

“That would be preferred,” Saretti said, her voice clipped.

“How often can I learn with you?” Leia pressed. “I want to get good and be a challenge for Dipika. I’ll practice on the days I don’t see you, too, but I want to learn.”

Dipika’s mom answered: “Twice a week. That is all the time that Saretti can allot.”

“And then we’ll do lightsaber combat twice a week, too!” Leia said, giving Saretti her best smile.

Saretti snapped something in Solean to Dipika’s mother, who made a dismissive gesture. “That will be fine, as long as your schoolwork doesn’t suffer,” she said instead.

“It won’t!” Leia promised, then looked to Dipika. “Right?”

Dipika nodded, the gestured exhausted.

“Thank you so much, Saretti,” Leia said, looking to Dipika’s sister. “I really look forward to learning from you!”

Leia’s thanks seemed to throw Saretti off-balance emotionally, but she murmured something along the lines, “You’re welcome.”

“You will both be sore tomorrow morning,” Dipika’s mom said as she walked over to her younger daughter and Leia. “But at least we now know where we’re starting.”

“Yup,” Leia said and stood, even though her legs protested. She lifted Dipika upright with the Force and held her until she was steady on her feet. “See you at school!”

“Yes,” Dipika agreed, her voice stronger.

Leia saw them all off, but her dad hung back. It was only once they were gone and Leia returned inside that her dad laughed, the sound low and dark.

“Daddy?”

“Ah, Leia,” he said and pulled her up into a hug. “I love you.”

“And I love Daddy!” Leia proclaimed, giving him a tight hug in return. “How’d I do? And how’d Dipika do? She didn’t seem too beat up. You weren’t mean to her, were you?”

“I was not mean to her,” her dad replied. “The droid was on the easiest setting.”

“Good.”

“She is Force-sensitive, although she cannot use it,” her dad told her. “She is also more used to dodging than using a weapon. It will take some time to teach her to be comfortable with a weapon.”

“That’s okay! She’ll practice on that and I’ll practice on getting my legs stronger.”

“You scared them, you know.”

Leia frowned. “I did? I thought they were scared of _you_.”

“Oh, the younger—Saretti?—was scared of me, as she should be. The Queen respects me for my power and for the fact that I put her on her throne.”

“You helped her become Queen? By killing someone?”

“By killing many someones,” her dad confirmed.

“So why were they scared of _me_?   I was so bad at the kicks and got tired real fast!”

“Most of the people at your school don’t know you as a Sith apprentice,” her dad said. “You are…fiercer, more focused, and much more dangerous than most people realize. Even that practice showed them but a glimpse of your real power, and as they know that you will only grow more powerful in time, they are wondering how safe it is for Dipika to be your friend.”

“I’d never hurt her!” Leia protested.

“You and I know that,” her dad said and set her down on a chair at the kitchen table. “But they don’t.”

“Well, I’ll tell them and I’ll tell Dipika and then they won’t worry.”

“I’m not sure it will work that way,” her dad said. “You did very well in both exercises. Solean combat will test your strength, endurance, and flexibility, all of which will serve you well in lightsaber combat.”

“I know! It’ll be awesome.”

“Maybe we’ll have to make an entirely new form for you,” Vader mused, “since you are already mixing forms.”

“Really?! I have to think of a cool name for it.”

“You have time.”

Leia hummed in agreement. She pushed a few damp strands of hair out of her face and let out a gusty sigh. “Thank you, Daddy. For agreeing to train Dipika and me.”

“I won’t always be able to,” he said. “I may be around less.”

Leia startled and looked quickly to him. “What? Why?”

Waves of subdued irritation slowly rolled off her father as he said, “The Emperor believes that my spending time with you is making me…soft.”

“Soft?” Leia repeated, incredulous.

Vader nodded.

“You’re not soft! You’re the strongest person in the entire galaxy! The entire universe!” Leia said.

“But because I will not be around as often, I am going to train you triply hard when I am around.”

“You’re just gonna let him boss you around?!”

“Leia, he technically _is_ my boss,” Vader said, although there was anger in his voice—anger that wasn’t directed at Leia, but at the Emperor. “So I have to listen to him…for now.”

“When I’m strong enough—” Leia started, but a quick, sharp gesture from her dad kept her from finishing her sentence.

“I know,” Vader said. “He will get what is coming to him in time. You and I both need to get stronger.”

“Is that why you have been eating with me lately?” Leia asked. “Without your mask on, I mean.”

Vader hesitated at their stove and said, “Cooked food, _real_ food, makes me stronger.”

“And it’s good to be stronger,” Leia observed. “It’s nice. I like eating food with you.”

Vader’s fingers touched his mask, and his muted sorrow made Leia send him all the love she could.

“I really don’t care how you look,” Leia told him, trying to put reassurance and truth into her words. “It’s just because of the Jedi that you are that way. I’ll kill them all eventually, if you don’t do it first.”

Vader looked at her, his posture and presence in the Force unreadable, which made Leia slowly grow anxious.

Abruptly, love and relief and happiness wrapped around her, and Leia gave her dad a relieved grin.

He knelt down and gave her a quick hug. “Leia…”

“Yeah?”

“I love you. I want you to see me, my face, without me having to worry about how long I can be without it before being hurt.”

“I don’t care! I love your mask. It’s so cool and it makes your voice all deep and omi—onmi—scary.”

“Still,” Vader said. “There may be a time when I leave you for longer than I usually do. It probably won’t be for a few years, though.”

“Why? Why would you leave me?”

“Because I will be doing something to make me stronger, but it will be dangerous and I will need time to recover. I will only go once you are old enough to take care of yourself, though.”

Leia looked at him intently, and his mask wavered and warped. A handsome, _human_ face briefly appeared, but the mask returned quickly.

“You’ll be fine,” Leia said with certainty. “So whenever you need to go, I’ll be fine.”

“You’re so strong, Leia,” her dad told her, love in his voice.

“So, what’s for dinner?”

Vader laughed. “Take a shower first, little Lady, and I’ll figure something out.”

Leia blinked. “Little Lady? Dee and Kay call me that, but why you?”

“Well, you wouldn’t be a Sith _Lord_ , would you? You’d be a Sith Lady.”

“But Daddy’s a Sith Lord and I want to be like Daddy,” Leia said, frowning sharply.

“You might think differently in a few years.”

“I don’t think so,” Leia replied. “But I am a little stinky. I’ll go shower and then I’ll help you!”

“Very well,” Vader said, his voice following her into her bedroom.

Leia tossed her gross, sweaty clothes into her laundry basket, pulled on a robe, and gathered her pajamas. As far as Leia knew, they weren’t going to be going anywhere, and from the pleasant ache and tiredness that was creeping up on her, Leia knew that she would be in bed early.

When Leia came out of her shower, her dad was halfway through making dinner, a holopad floating next to him, a recipe on its face as he chopped vegetables.

“Can I help?” Leia asked.

“No,” Vader answered. “You look like you’re going to fall asleep sitting up. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“Okay,” Leia said, more relieved than she thought she should be. Sith should be able to work through exhaustion!

She still sat down on one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

“Some of the Sith holocrons are confusing,” Leia said. “A lot of them expect you to already know Jedi stuff, so I’m just gonna hide the Sith ones so no one else can get them and work through the Jedi ones first.” She hesitated. “Is that okay, Dad?”

“You have learned quickly, but I suppose I may have skipped over the basics,” her dad admitted. “I have no doubt that you will learn everything without any problems. As long as you don’t decide to start adhering to the Jedi Code.”

Leia looked at her father, horrified. “Never!”  
Her father laughed, and his reaction assuaged Leia’s fears.

“Do you have homework you need to do?”

“I thought I looked like I was going to fall asleep sitting up?”

“Being tired from training your body is no excuse to not train your mind,” her father replied.

Leia groaned theatrically, and said, “But, _Dad_.”

“No, ‘but’s,” her dad responded. “Why don’t you practice speaking to me in Huttese?”

“But the language sounds gross,” she grumbled.

“You chose to study it,” Vader reminded her. “Now, practice.”

“And you can understand it?”

“When I was a little younger than you, I lived on Tattooine, which is controlled by the Hutts,” he said, his voice bland, an old hurt underlying his words. “I know Huttese.”

“Well, I mean, if it makes you upset—”

“Practice. Now,” her father said in flawless Huttese.

Leia’s face heated and she responded in Hutttese: “Okay.”

When she finally went to bed, she only had enough time to pull her Stormtrooper plushie to her before she fell deep asleep.


End file.
